CARRIAGE DRIVEN THROUGH A TREE. 215 
is there represented, that ‘‘In the year 1724, a 
road-way was cut through its trunk, higher than 
the entrance to Westminster Abbey, and sufli- 
ciently capacious to permit a carriage and four 
horses to pass through it. A print of it was 
published at that time, in which it scarcely varies 
from its present appearance, excepting that the 
artist has sought to heighten the effect by 
choosing the moment when one of the old- 
fashioned equipages of the day, and its four 
long-tailed appendages, were passing through the 
cavity.”* When this decay has gone thus far, the 
powerful pressure of the wind is sure ultimately 
to lay the crown of the tree level with the 
earth, and very frequently to prostrate the entire 
trunk. 
What a mournful picture of decay and death 
is presented to.us by the tree whose history we 
have been seeking to unfold for these many 
pages past. Where is its young luxuriance, its 
mature vigour, its old age green and fresh, now ? 
Spring may invite out, as before, leaves and blos- 
soms, but they come no more obedient to its call 
to adorn the naked trunk. The bright and play- 
* Strutt. Sylva Britannica. 
