CHAP, vi S Y L V A 309 



be made the best plow-handles. Now that this rare 

 tree was first brought from Civita Vecchia into 

 England, by the Countess of Arundel, wife to that 

 illustrious patron of arts and antiquities, Thomas Earl 

 of Arundel and Surrey, Great Great Grand-Father to 

 his Grace the present Duke of Norfolk, whom I left 

 sick at Padoa, where he died ; highly displeased at 

 his grand-son Philip's putting on the friars-frock, tho' 

 afterwards the purple, when Cardinal of Norfolk : 

 After all, I cannot easily assent to the tradition, tho' 

 I had it from a noble hand : 1 rather think it might 

 first be brought out of some more northerly clime, 

 the nature of the tree so delighting and flourishing 

 in the shady and colder exposures, and abhorrence 

 of heat. 



To crown this chapter then, tho' in the last place, 

 (for so finis coronat opus) we reserve the bay tree. 



20. Bays,[/0#r#j vu/garis].The learned Isaac Vossius 

 and etymologists are wonderfully curious, in their 

 conjecture concerning its derivation ; (a laude says 

 Issidor,) and from the ingenious poet, we learn how 

 it became sacred to Apollo, the patron of the wits, 

 and ever since the meed of conquerors and heroic per- 

 sons. But leaving fiction, we pass to the culture of 

 this noble and fragrant tree, propagated both by their 

 seeds, roots, suckers or layers : They (namely, the 

 berries) should be gather'd dropping-ripe : Pliny has 

 a particular process for the ordering of them, not to 

 be rejected, which is to gather them in January, and 

 spreading them till their sweat be over ; then he puts 

 them in dung and sows them : As for the steeping in 

 wine, water does altogether as well, others wash the 

 seeds from their mucilage, by breaking and bruising 

 glutinous berries ; then sow them in rich ground in 



