EVERGREEN BOX-TREE. 435 



between 1430 and 1450, entitled " Biblia Pauperum," the Bible of the poor. 

 This work consisted of about forty pages printed from wood-cuts, illustrated by 

 texts of scripture, which is supposed to have given the first idea of printing with 

 the movable types, soon after invented by Guttemburg. In 1480, Wohlgemuth, 

 an engraver on wood, at Nuremberg, is said to have been tiic first who attempted 

 to introduce shade into wood-engravings. His pupil, Albert Duer, carried the art 

 to a very high degree of perfection; and in his time, tlie wood-cutters, (form- 

 schneider.) of Germany, became so numerous, that they were incorporated into a 

 body distinct from that of the letter-printers or writers (brichnaler.) Holbein 

 succeeded Duer ; but soon afterwards, the art of engraving on copper having been 

 discovered, wood-engraving was comparatively neglected, and fell into disuse till 

 the time of Bewick, when a taste for the art was revived. The first engravers on 

 wood, and up to the time of Bewick, or nearly so, were accustomed to have the 

 trunks of the trees on which they were to engrave, sawn up into planks, and to 

 cut out the figures with a knife or other tools, on the side of the grain; but since 

 his time, or before, the practice of cutting the trunk into cross sections, about an 

 inch in thickuess, was adopted ; and the engravings were cut out on the wood across 

 the grain. The advantages of this mode over the other are, that much finer lines 

 can be produced, and the engraved block, from which a greater number of impres- 

 sions can be taken, will be far more durable. The followers of Bewick produced 

 some beautiful engravings; but from the mode of printing from them, though 

 they were mixed with the type, they were almost as expensive as if they had been 

 worked from separate plates. By the more modern practice, however, wood-cuts 

 are printed from, with the same facility as from movable types ; and as specimens 

 of unsurpassable beauty, extraordinary force, and delicacy of execution, the reader 

 is referred to several illustrated works recently published in London, by Van 

 Voorst, and others, among which we would particularize the " History of British 

 Forest Trees," by Selby; "Sporting Scenes and Country Characters,'" by Mar- 

 tingale; and the late volumes of the "Penny Magazine."* 



The largest box-trees in Britain, probably, are two at Eyford House, near 

 Stow, in the Wold, in Gloucestershire, both of which exceed thirty-two feet in 

 height, with trunks rather more than two feet in circumference, and a diamete: 

 of space covered by the branches, of about twenty feet. 



The largest box hedge in England, is at Pentworth, which is fifteen feet higli. 

 forty yards long, twelve feet broad at the base, and is supposed to be more than 

 two centuries old. 



In France, in the Jardin des Plantes, at Paris, there is a box-tree, upwards of 

 one hundred years planted, which has attained a height of more than thirty feet. 



The introduction of this species into the North American colonies probably 

 dates back to the early periods of their settlements. Cue of the oldest specimens 

 known to exist in this country, is growing on the estate of Mr. Lemuel W. Wells, 

 at Yonkers, near New York, which, it is said, was planted about two hundred 

 years ago, by Frederick Philipse, who formerly lived on the place of its present 

 proprietor. 



In the Bartram botanic garden, at Kingsessing, near Philadelphia, there is a 

 Buxus s. variegata, which has attained the height of twenty-five feet, with a 

 trunk two feet and a half in circumference. 



Poetical Allusions, t^'c- The box is sometimes substituted for the holly in dec- 

 orating the churches at Christmas; and in a note to Wordsworth's poems, we are 

 informed that, in several parts of the north of Mngland, when a tunerai takes 

 place, a basinful of sprigs of box is placed at the door of the house of the de- 

 ceased, and that each attendant takes one of these sprigs, and throws it into the 



* See Loudon's Arboretum, iii., pp. 1335 et 1336. 



