CHAP, in SYLVA 33 



clothe it all the winter ; the roots growing very deep 

 and stragling. The author of Britannia Baconica, 

 speaks of an oak in Lanhadron-Park in Cornwall, 

 which bears constantly leaves speckled with white ; 

 and of another call'd the painted oak ; others have 

 since been found at Fridwood, near Sittingbourn in 

 Kent ; as also sycamore and elms, in other places 

 mentioned by the learned Dr. Plot in his Nat. Hist. 

 of Oxfordshire : Which I only mention here, that 

 the variety may be compar'd by some ingenious 

 person thereabouts, as well as the truth of the fatal 

 pras-admonition, of oaks bearing strange leaves : 

 Besides that famous oak of New Forest in Hampshire^ 

 which puts forth its buds about Christmass, but 

 wither'd again before night ; and was order'd (by 

 our late King Charles II.) to be inclos'd with a 

 Pale ; (as I find it mentioned in the last edition of 

 Mr. Camden's Brit.) And so was another before 

 this ; which his grandfather, King James, went to 

 visit, and caused benches to be plac'd about it ; 

 which giving it reputation, the people never left 

 hacking of the boughs and bark till they kill'd the 

 tree : As I am told they have serv'd that famous oak 

 near White-Lady s which hid and protected our late 

 Monarch from being discovered and taken by the 

 Rebel-Soldiers, who were sent to find him, after his 

 almost miraculous escape at the battel of Worcester. 

 In the mean time, as to this extraordinary precosness, 

 the like is reported of a certain wallnut-tree as well 

 as of the famous white-thorns of Glassenbury^ and 

 blackthorns in several places. Some of our common 

 oaks bear their leaves green all winter ; but they are 

 generally pollards, and such as are shelter'd in warm 

 corners and hedge rows. To speak then particularly 



