n8 SYLVA BOOK i 



to be much resembled by the female cypress : We 

 have now, I am almost persuaded, as beautiful planks 

 of some walnut-trees, near the root ; and yew, ivy, 

 rose-wood, ash, thorn, and olive, 1 have seen incom- 

 parable pieces ; but the great art was in the seasoning, 

 and politure ; for which last, the rubbing with a 

 man's hand who came warm out of the bath, was 

 accounted better than any cloth, as Pliny reports. 

 Some there be who contend, this citern was a part 

 near the root of the cedar, which, as they describe 

 it, is very oriental and odoriferous ; but most of the 

 learned favour the citron, and that it grew not far 

 from our Tangier, about the foot of Mount Atlas, 

 whence haply some industrious person might procure 

 of it from the Moors ; and I did not forget to put his 

 then Excellency my Lord H. Howard (since his 

 Grace the Duke of Norfolk) in mind of it ; who I 

 hoped might have opportunities of satisfying our 

 curiosity, that by comparing it with those elegant 

 woods, which both our own countries, and the Indies 

 furnish, we might pronounce something in the con- 

 troversie : But his not going so far into the countrey, 

 and the disorder which happen'd at his being there, 

 quite frustrated this expectation : Here I think good 

 to add, what honest Palissy philosophises after his 

 plain manner, about the reason of those pretty undu- 

 lations and chamfers, which we so frequently find in 

 divers woods, which he takes to be the descent, as 

 well as ascent of moisture : For what else (says he) 

 becomes of that water which we often encounter in 

 the cavities, when many branches divaricate, and 

 spread themselves at the tops of great trees (especially 

 pollards) unless (according to its natural appetite) it 

 sink into the very body of the stem through the 



