CHAP, in SYLVA 33 



But for these capacious hollow trees we need go no 

 farther than our own country ; there being (besides 

 that which I mention in Gloucestershire) an oak at 

 Kidlington-green in Oxfordshire, which has been 

 frequently us'd (before the death of the late judge 

 Morton, near whose house it stood) for the immediate 

 imprisonment of vagabonds and malefactors, till they 

 could conveniently be remov'd to the county-gaol : 

 And such another prison Dr. Plot does in his excellent 

 History of Oxfordshire, mention out of Ferdinand 

 Hertado in Moravia, to be made out of the trunk of 

 a willow, 27 foot in compass : But not to go out of 

 our prornis'd bounds, the learned Doctor speaks of an 

 elm growing on Blechington-Green, which gave 

 reception and harbour to a poor great-belly'd woman, 

 (whom the unhospitable people would not receive 

 into their houses) who was brought to bed in it of a 

 son, now a lusty young fellow. This puts me in 

 mind of that (I know not what to call it) privilege 

 belonging to a venerable oak, lately growing in Knoll- 

 Wood, near Trely-Castle in Staffordshire, of which 

 (I think) Sir Charles Skrymsher is owner; that upon 

 oath made of a bastard's being begotten within the 

 reach of its boughs shade, (which I assure you at the 

 rising and declining of the Sun, is very ample) the 

 offence was not obnoxious to the censure of either 

 ecclesiastical or civil magistrate. These, with our 

 historians, I rather mention also for their extravagant 

 use, and to refresh the reader with some variety, than 

 for their extraordinary capacity ; because such in- 

 stances are innumerable, should we pretend to illus- 

 trate this particular with more than needs. 



And now I have spoken of elms, and other extra- 

 vagancies of trees ; there stands one (as this curious 







