$Z S Y L V A BOOK i 



fallen into another man's ground : The land and the 

 sea do sufficiently speak for the improvement of this 

 excellent material ; houses and ships, cities and navies 

 are built with it ; and there is a kind of it so tough, 

 and extreamly compact, that our sharpest tools will 

 hardly enter it, and scarcely the very fire it self, in 

 which it consumes but slowly, as seeming to partake 

 of a ferruginous and metallin shining nature, proper 

 for sundry robust uses. It is doubtless of all timber 

 hitherto known, the most universally useful and 

 strong ; for though some trees be harder, as box, 

 cornus, ebony, and divers of the Indian woods ; yet 

 we find them more fragil, and not so well qualify'd 

 to support great incumbencies and weights, nor is 

 there any timber more lasting, which way soever us'd. 

 There has (we know) been no little stir amongst 

 learned men, of what material the Cross was made, 

 on which our Blessed Saviour sufFer'd : Venerable 

 Bede in Collectaneis^ affirms it to have been fram'd of 

 several woods, namely cypress, cedar, pine, and box ; 

 and to confirm it S. Hierom has cited the 6th of 

 Isaiah i 3. Gloria libaniad te "Peniet, & buxus & pinus 

 simul ad ornandum locum sanctificationis me<z, & locum 

 pedum meorum significabo ; but following the version 

 of the LXX. he reads in cupresso, pinu & cedro^ ?c. 

 Others insert the palm, and so compose the gibbet of 

 no less than four different timbers, according to the 

 old verse : 



1 Nail'd were his feet to cedar, to palm his hands ; 

 Cypress his Body bore, title on olive stands : 



1 Quatuor ex lignis dotnini crux dicitur esse, 5-c. 

 Pes crucis est cedrus, corpus tenet alta cupressus ; 

 Palma manus retinet, titulo laetatur oliva. 



