EUROPEAN HOLLY. 163 
ieir day, were those of Lord Dacre, at his park in Sussex, and of Sir Matthew 
)ecker, at Richmond. "I have seen hedges," observes Evelyn, "or, if you 
/ill, stout walls of holly, twenty feet in height, kept upright ; and the gilded 
ort budded low, and in two or three places one above another, shorn and fash- 
med into columns and pilasters, architecturally shaped, and at due distance ; 
sian which nothing can possibly be more pleasant, the berry adorning the interco- 
.imniations with scarlet festoons, and encarpa." In Scotland, the most celebrated 
oily hedges were those of the Earl of Haddington, at Tyningham, and those at 
/ollington House, and at Moredun, near Edinburgh. Those at Tyningham 
fere chiefly planted in 1712, and are two thousand nine hundred and fifty-two 
ards in length, from ten to twenty-five feet in height, and from nine to thirteen 
set wide at the base. Most of the hedges are regularly clipped in April, and 
re carefully protected, by ditches on each side, from the bite of cattle, and 
lore particularly of sheep, which are very fond of the bark, shoots, and young 
saves of this tree. 
Pliny tells us that there was a holly-tree, in his time, growing near the Vati- 
an, in Rome, on which was fixed a plate of brass, with an inscription engraven 
i Tuscan letters ; and that this was older than Rome itself, which must have 
een more than eight hundred years. The same author notices a holly-tree, in 
^usculum, the trunk of which measured thirty-five feet in circumference, and 
/hich sent out ten branches, of such magnitude, that each might pass for a tree 
;self. He says, that this single tree alone, resembled a small wood. 
Cole informs us, in his " Paradise of Plants." that he knew a tree of this kind 
rhich grew in an orchard, and " the owner," he says, " cut it down, and caused 
; to be sawn into boards, and made himself thereof a coffin ; and, if I mistake 
ot, left enough to make his wife one also. Both the parties were corpulent; 
nd, therefore, you may imagine the tree could not be small." Evelyn men- 
ons some large holly-trees near his own place, at Wooton, in Surry, in the 
eighbourhood of which was once a fort called " Holmsdale Castle," from, as he 
upposes, the number of holms or hollies, which once grew there. The names 
f " Holmsdale," " Holmwood," and " Holme Castle," occur in various parts of 
Icotland, and are generally supposed to have been applied in consequence of the 
bundance of hollies at these places at the times the names were given. Hayes 
lentions a variegated silver holly at Ballygannon, in Ireland, twenty-five feet 
igh, with a trunk five feet in circumference ; and another, on Innisfallen Island, 
a the lake of Killarney, with a trunk fifteen feet in circumference, and of about 
he same height before it began to branch out. 
The largest holly in England, is at Claremont, in Surry. It grows in a sandy 
3am or gravel, and in 1835, measured eighty feet in height, with a trunk two 
jet, two inches in diameter, and an ambitus, or spread of branches, of twenty- 
ive feet. 
At Paris, in the Jardin des Plantes, there is a tree of this species, which 
ttained the height of thirty feet in fifty years after planting. And Baudrillart 
peaks of holly hedges, in France, that are upwards of two hundred years old. 
In Prussia, the holly grows wild in a forest twenty miles from Berlin, never- 
tieless, in the botanic garden of that city, it requires protection during winter. 
In Italy, at Monza, there is a tree of this species, which attained the height of 
wenty feet in thirty years after planting. 
The European holly was probably among the first trees introduced into North 
Lmerica by the early settlers, but owing to the severity of our climate in winter, 
t appears not to have thrived north of the Potomac. There are several fine 
pecimens of this tree in Virginia, which have long been standing there, and 
robably were planted soon after the settlement of Jamestown, in 1607. 
Poetical and Legendary Allusion? In the language of poets, this tree is 
