CHAP, ii SYLVA 215 



planted groves and walks of platans, to refresh and 

 shade the Palcestritte ; as you have them describ'd by 

 Vitruvius, lib. 5. cap. n. and as Claudius Perrault 

 has assisted the text, with a figure, or ichnographical 

 plot. These trees 1 the Romans first brought out of 

 the Levant, and cultivated with so much industry 

 and cost, for their stately and proud heads only, that 

 great orators and states-men, Cicero and Hortensius, 

 would exchange now and then a turn at the bar, that 

 they might have the pleasure to step to their villas, 

 and refresh their platans, which they would often 

 irrigate with wine instead of water ; credit & affuso 

 laetior umbra mero : when Hortensius taught trees to 

 tipple wine ; and so priz'd the very shadow of it, that 

 when afterwards they transplanted them into France, 

 they exacted a 2 solarium and tribute of any of the 

 natives, who should presume but to put his head 

 under it. But whether for any virtue extraordinary 

 in the shade, or other propitious influence issuing 

 from them, a worthy Knight, who stay'd at Ispahan 

 in Persia, when that famous city was infected with a 

 raging pestilence, told me, that since they have plant- 

 ed a greater number of these noble trees about it, the 

 plague has not come nigh their dwellings. Pliny 

 affirms, there is no tree whatsoever which so well 

 defends us from the heat of the sun in Summer, nor 

 that admits it more kindly in Winter. And for our 

 encouragement, I do upon experience assure you, that 

 they will flourish and abide with us, without any 

 more trouble than frequent and plentiful watering, 

 which from their youth they excessively delight in, 

 and gratefully acknowledge by their growth accord- 



1 Macrob. saturnal. 3. c. n. 



* Solarium quod pro folo pendetur, as the pandects name the tax paid for the 

 shades that bear no fruit. 



