

CHAP, in S Y L V A 37 



contain'd in height 130 foot, and (as some report, 30 

 foot diameter ; and another which yielded 100 wane 

 load. I have read of a table of walnut-tree to be seen 

 at St. Nicholas's in Lorrain, which held 25 foot 

 broad, all of a piece, and of competent length and 

 thickness, rarely fleck'd and watered ; Scamozzi the 

 architect reports he saw it : Such a monster that 

 might be, under which the Emperor Fred, the Third 

 held his magnificent feast 1472. For in this recen- 

 sion we will endeavour to give a taste of more fresh 

 observations, and to compare our modern timber with 

 the antient, and that, not only abroad, but without 

 travelling into foreign countries for these wonders. 



8. What goodly trees were of old ador'd and conse- 

 crated by the Dryads, I leave to conjecture from the 

 stories of our ancient Britains, who had they left 

 records of their prodigies in this kind, would doubtless 

 have furnish'd us with examples as remarkable for the 

 growth and stature of trees, as any which we have 

 deduc'd from the writers of foreign countries ; since 

 the remains of what are yet in being (notwithstanding 

 the havock which has universally been made, and the 

 little care to improve our woods) may stand in fair 

 competition with any thing that antiquity can pro- 

 duce. 



9. There is somewhere in Wales an inscription 

 extant, cut into the wood of an old beam, thus, 



SEXAGINTA PEDES FUERANT IN STIPITE NOSTRO, 

 EXCEPTA COMA QU^E SPECIOSA FUIT. 



This must needs have been a noble tree, but not 

 without later parallels ; for to instance in the several 

 species, and speak first of the bulks of some immense 



