OF FOREST-TREES. 195

and that, not only abroad, but without travelling into foreign CountriesC hap. IIIfor these Wonders.

8. What goodly Trees were of Old adored , and consecrated by theDriads , I leave to conjecture from the Stories of our antient Britains+who had they left Records of their Brodigies in this Kind, woulddoubtless have furnished us with Examples as remarkable for the Growthand Stature of Trees , as any which we have deduced from the Wri-ters of Foreign Countries ; since the Remains of what are yet in being(notwithstanding the Havock which has universally been made, andthe little Care to improve our Woods') may stand in fair Competitionwith any thing that Antiquity can produce.

9. There is somewhere in Wales an Inscription extant, cut into theWood of an old Beam, thus,

SEXAGINfA PEDES FUERANT IN SFlPIfE NOSFRO *EXCEPTA COMA $JJÆ SPECIOSA FUIf.

this must needs have been a noble Tree, but not without later Baral-lels ; for to instance in the several Species , and speak first of the Bulksof some immense Trees ; there was standing an old and decayed Chef-nut at Fraiting in Ejsex , whose very Stump did yield thirty sizableLoad of Logs. I could produce you another os the same Kind inGloucestershire , which contains within the Bowels of it a pretty wain-shotted Room inlighten’d with Windows, and furnisti’d with Seats, &c.to answer the Lician Flat anus lately mentioned;

10. But whilst I am on this Period ; fee what a Tilia that most learn*ed and obliging Person Sir Tho. Brown of Norwich describes to me ina Letter just now received.

An extraordinary large and stately Tilia, Linden, or Lime-tree*there groweth at Depeham in Norfolk, ten Miles from Norwich*whose Measure is this. The Compass in the least Bart of the Trunkor Body about two Tards from the Grounds is at least eight Yards andhalf; about the Root nigh the Earth , sixteen Yards, about half a Tard.above that, near twelve Yards in Circuit: The Height to the upper-most Boughs about thirty Yards, which surmounts the famous Tiliaof Zurich in Switzerland ; and uncertain it is whether in any Tilice-tum, or Lime-walk, abroad it be considerably exceeded: Tet was thefirst Motive I had to view it not so much the Largeness of the Tree ,as the general Opinion that no Man could ever name it ; but I foundit to be a Tilia fœmina ; and (if the Hi ft in 51 ion of Bauhinus be ad-mitted from the greater and lejfer Leaf) a Tilia Platyphyllos, or La-tifolia ; some Leaves being three Inches broad ; but to distinguish itfrom others in the Country, I called it Tilia Coloflæa Depehamensis.

Thus that learned Person, from this and the like Instance (as the Rea-der will find in what follows growing in our own Country ) I am notapt so much to admire what is pretended so mightily to exceed the re-freshing Shades of some of our Oaks, Beeches , Elms , and other am-ple Umbrages, if diligently compared ; as I am to impute it to whatthe younger * Tliny attributes to Mens affecting Novelties, that tanta * Llb . v i«.\fuartim reritm fatietas , ahacum^ue avidttas. Ep. xx.ad

A Bop lar-tree, not much inferior to this, he informs me grew lately G3,lius 'at liar hug by Thetford , at Sir William Gawds s Gate, blown downby that terrible Hurricane about four Years since.

But