CHAP. XCIX. EUPHORBIA CE. BU’XUS. 1339 
appears to have been equally the case in rt in modern times ; gardeners, 
even so late as the time of the Commonwealth, being called by Commenius 
pleachers (See Janua Trilinguis, Oxford edit.) About the middle of the 
seventeenth century, the taste for verdant sculpture was at its height in 
England ; and, about the beginning of the eighteenth, it afforded a subject of 
raillery for the wits of the day, soon afterwards beginning to decline. There 
are some humorous papers on the subject in the Guardian, and other contem- 
porary works. The following lines will give a good idea of a topiary garden :— 
“ There likewise mote be seen on every side 
The shapely box, of all its branching pride 
Ungently eis and, with preposterous skill, 
To various beasts, and birds of sundry quill, 
Transform’d, and human shapes of monstrous size, 
Also other wonders of the sportive shears, 
Fair Nature mis-adorning, there were found : 
Globes, spiral columns, pyramids, and piers 
With spouting urns and budding statues crown’d ; 
And horizontal dials on the ground, 
In living box, by cunning artists traced ; 
And galleys trim, on no long voyage bound, 
But by their roots there ever anchor’d fast,” 
G. WEsT. 
In modern Gardening, the tree box forms one of our most valuable evergreen 
shrubs or low trees. It is more particularly eligible as an undergrowth in 
ornamental plantations; where, partially shaded by other trees, its leaves 
take a deeper green, and shine more conspicuously. Next to the holly, it 
has the most beautiful appearance in winter; more especially when the 
ground is covered with snow. The variegated sorts are admissible as objects 
of curiosity ; but, as they are apt to lose their variegation when planted in the 
shade, and as, in the full light, their green is frequently of a sickly yellowish 
hue, we do not think that they can be recommended as ornamental. The 
myrtle-leaved forms a very handsome small bush on a lawn, The use of the 
dwarf box for edgings is familiar to every one. 
The other Uses of the box, in former times, were various; but most of them 
are now almost forgotten. The bark and leaves are bitter, and have a dis- 
agreeable smell; and a decoction of them, when taken in a large dose, is_ said 
to be purgative; and, in a small dose, sudorific. An empyreumatic oil is 
extracted from them, which is said to cure the toothach and some other dis- 
orders, A tincture was made from them, which was once a celebrated specific 
in Germany for intermittent fevers ; but, the secret having been purchased and 
made public by Joseph I., the medicine fell into disuse. Olivier de Serres 
(Théét. d’ Agri.) recommends the branches and leaves of the box, as by far the 
best manure for the grape ; not only because it is very common in the south 
of France, but because there is no plant that by its decomposition affords a 
greater quantity of vegetable mould. The box is said to enter into the com- 
position of various medicated oils for strengthening and increasing the growth 
of the hair; and Parkinson says that “the leaves and sawdust, boiled in lie, 
will change the hair to an auburn colour.” Box is sometimes substituted 
for holly in the churches at Christmas; and, in a note to Wordsworth’s poems, 
we are informed that, “in several parts of the north of England, when a 
funeral takes place, a basinful of sprigs of box is placed at the door of the 
house from which the coffin is taken up; and each person who attends the 
funeral takes one of these sprigs, and throws it into the grave of the deceased.” 
(Words. Poems, vol.i. p. 163.) The box is the badge of the Highland clan 
M‘Intosh ; and the variegated kind, of the clan M‘Pherson. ( Bawt. Brit. Fl. Pi., 
ii. t, 142.) Pliny affirms that no animal will eat the seed of the box; and it is 
said that its leaves are particularly poisonous to camels. It is also asserted by 
many authors that box trees are never cropped by cattle; and that the Corsican 
honey is rendered poisonous from the bees feeding on the flowers of the box. 
Propagation and Culture. The box is propagated by seeds, cuttings, and 
layers. It seeds freely where it is allowed to grow freely; but, where it is 
