28 S Y L V A BOOK m 



have held his peace : Even rosemary has lasted 

 amongst us a hundred years. 



4. I might to this add much more, and truly with 

 sufficient probability, that the age of timber-trees, 

 especially of such as be of a compact, resinous, or 

 balsamical nature, (for of this kind are the yew, box, 

 horn-beam, white-thorn, oak, walnut, cedar, juniper, 

 &c.) are capable of very long duration and continu- 

 ance : Those of largest roots (a sign of age) longer 

 liv'd than the shorter ; the dry than the wet ; and 

 the gummy, than the watery ; the sterile, than the 

 fruitful: For not to conclude from Pliny's l Hercynian 

 oaks, or the turpentine tree of Idumaea, (which 

 Josephus ranks also with the creation :) I mention'd 

 a cypress yet remaining somewhere in Persia near an 

 old sepulchre, whose stem is as large as five men can 

 encompass, the boughs extending fifteen paces every 

 way ; this must needs be a very old tree, believ'd by 

 my author little less than 2500 years of age. Of 

 such another, Dr. Spon in his voyage into Greece 

 speaks, which by its spreading seems to be of the 

 savine-kind : And in truth, as to the age and duration, 

 cypress, cedar, box, ebony, Brasil, and other exceed- 

 ing hard and compact (with some resinous) woods, 

 growing chiefly in both East and West-Indies, must 

 needs be of wonderful age. The particulars were too 

 long to recount. The oldp/atanus set by Agamemnon, 

 mention'd by Theophrastus, and the Herculean oaks ; 

 the laurel near Hippocrene, the Vatican Ilex, the 

 vine which was grown to that bulk and woodiness, 

 as to make a statue of Jupiter and columns in Juno's 

 temple ; and at present 'tis found that the great doors 



1 Silvarum, Hercynia dierum sexaginta iter occupans, ut major alits, ita et 

 notior. Pomp. Mela. 1. 3. c. 3. 



