HOLLY TEIBE 227 



landscape in winter ; for at that season Ave have no native evergreen wliich 

 is at all conspicuons, except this and the ivy, and the masses of dark verdure 

 yielded by these plants contrast beautifully with the naked outlines of the 

 branches of the wood, as well as with the light tender green of the budding 

 trees of spring. Its prickly glossy leaves and tough wood render it an 

 excellent plant for hedges, and when Dutch horticulture prevailed in this 

 country, and a certain formality in landscape gardening was generally 

 cherished, many portions of land were inclosed within Holly hedges. 

 Except that it grows slowly, nothing can be better suited for a hedge than 

 the impenetrable boughs of the Holly, lasting through centuries, looking 

 bright at all seasons, and brightest at the darkest, unhurt by wind or 

 weather, and strong enough to resist the sturdiest intruder. A hedge of 

 Holly will, in about twenty years, attain the height of sixteen feet. Evelyn's 

 Holly hedge at Say's Court, which the Czar of Muscovy destroyed during 

 his temporary residence there, had been a source of innocent delight to its 

 owner. It was, says Evelyn, "beautiful at any time of the year, glittering 

 with its armed and varnished leaves, the taller standards at ordinary dis- 

 tances blushing with their natural coral." Bishop Mant, with a heart ever 

 alive to all that is beautiful in Nature, and a ready sympathy with all that 

 is graceful in human feeling, thus refers to it : — 



" And such was once thy Holly wall, " But more endear'd, 



Good Evelyn, thick, extended, tall. Good Evelyn, is thy honour'd name 



Thy hands disposed the seedlings fair, For true devotion's fervent flame, 



They throve beneath thy fostering care ; From wild o'erheated fancies free, 



Four hundred feet in length they throve. Pure faith and duteous loyalty ; 



Thrice three they rose in height above, Who, when each tree of noblest kind 



Glittering with arm'd and varnish'd leaves. For sight, smell, taste, entranced thy mind. 



Secure 'gainst weather, beasts, and thieves : Did still their glorious Author bless ; 



Blushing with native coral red. Nor to His holy volumes less 



Refreshment and delight they she'll Devoted in thy green retreat, 



About thy path ; and still diffuse And with His Church in union sweet. 



O'er thy mild page perennial hues. Held'st on thy lengthen'd pilgrimage, — 



The truly wise, the Christian sage." 



Beautiful holly hedges yet remain, which might vie with this renowned 

 one. At Tyningham, the seat of the Earl of Haddington, there is a holly 

 hedge two thousand nine hundred and fifty-two yards in length, varying 

 from ten to twenty-five feet high, with a base from nine to thirteen feet 

 broad. 



Many a hardy Holly is scattered over lonely moorlands, such as Dart- 

 moor, or some bleak Highland hill where human hand could never have 

 jilanted it, though now sometimes it serves as a beacon to the mariner at sea, 

 or to the traveller over pathless wilds. The Holly will thrive in places 

 Avhere the bleak winds would destroy every other tree. On the lofty clifls 

 near the old and renowned Castle of Dover, and in the grave-yard of the 

 church where oiu' fathers worshipped when the Gospel was first brought to 

 Britain, there is now placed a Holly-tree. Long after the generation who 

 planted it are laid beneath the sod, that tree, reared in memory of the Iron 

 Duke, the hero of many battles, will probably survive in all its greenness, 

 though on that bleak spot scarcely any other tree would outbrave the raving 

 Avinds Avhich come Avith the Avinter from land and sea. 



29—2 



