266 S Y L V A BOOK n 



luxury, (which has to our vast charges, excluded all 

 the ornaments of timber, Gfc. to give place to hang- 

 ings, embroideries, and foreign leather) shall be put 

 out of countenance, we may hope to see a new face 

 of things, for the encouragement of planters (the more 

 immediate work of God's hands) and the natural, 

 wholesome, and ancient use of timber, for the more 

 lasting occasions, and furniture of our dwellings : 

 And though I do not speak all this for the sake of 

 joyn'd-stools, benches, cup-boards, massy tables, and 

 gigantic bed-steads, (the hospitable utensils of our 

 fore-fathers) yet I would be glad to encourage the 

 carpenter, and the joyner, and rejoice to see, that 

 their work and skill do daily improve ; and that by 

 the example and application of his Majesty's Univer- 

 sities, and Royal Society, the restoration and improve- 

 ment of shipping, mathematical, and mechanical 

 arts, the use of timber grows daily in more reputa- 

 tion. And it were well if great persons might only 

 be indulg'd to inrich, and adorn their palaces with 

 tapestry, damask, velvet, and Persian furniture ; whilst 

 by some wholesome sumptuary laws, the universal 

 excess of those costly and luxurious moveables, were 

 prohibited meaner men, for divers politic considera- 

 tions and reasons, which it were easie to produce ; 

 but by a less influence than severer laws, it will be 

 very difficult, if not altogether impossible, to recover 

 our selves from a softness and vanity, which will in 

 time not only effeminate, but undo the nation. 



6. Gupressus, the cypress-tree is either the Sative, 

 or garden-tree, the most pyramidal and beautiful ; or 

 that which is call'd the male, (though somewhat 

 preposterously) which bears the small cones, but is of 

 a more extravagant shape : Should we reason only 



