82 SYLVA 



BOOK I 



interval, and in the single row, it makes the noblest 

 and the stateliest hedges for long walks in gardens, or 

 parks, of any tree whatsoever whose leaves are deci- 

 duous, and forsake their branches in winter ; because 

 it grows tall, and so sturdy, as not to be wronged by 

 the winds : Besides, it will furnish to the very foot 

 of the stem, and flourishes with a glossie and polish'd 

 verdure, which is exceeding delightful, of long con- 

 tinuance, and of all other the harder woods, the 

 speediest grower ; maintaining a slender, upright-stem, 

 which does not come to be bare and sticky in many 

 years ; it has yet this (shall I call it) infirmity, that 

 keeping on its leaf till new ones thrust them off, 'tis 

 clad in russet all the winter long. That admirable 

 espa/ier-hedge in the long middle walk of Luxem- 

 burgh garden at Paris (than which there is nothing 

 more graceful) is planted of this tree ; and so was that 

 cradle, or close-walk, with that perplext canopy which 

 lately cover'd the seat in his Majesty's Garden at 

 Hampton-Court, and as now I hear, they are planted 

 in perfection at New-park, the delicious villa of the 

 Noble Earl of Rochester, belonging once to a near 

 kinsman of mine, who parted with it to K. Charles 

 the First of Blessed Memory. These hedges are 

 tonsile ; but where they are maintain'd to fifteen or 

 twenty foot height (which is very frequent in the 

 places before mention'd) they are to be cut, and kept 

 in order with a syth of four foot long, and very little 

 falcated ; this is fix'd on a long sneed or streight 

 handle, and does wonderfully expedite the trimming 

 of these and the like hedges : An oblong square, 

 palisado'd with this plant, or the Flemish ormus, as is 

 that I am going to describe, and may be seen in that 

 inexhaustible magazine at Brompton Park (cultivated 



