2 i6 SYLVA BOOK iv 



a melting passage, as himself has recorded it. Con. 1. 8. 

 c. 8. and he gives the reason, solitudo enim mihl ad 

 negotium Jiendi aptior suggerebatur . And that indeed 

 such opportunities were successful for recollection, and 

 to the very reformation of some ingenuous spirits, 

 from secular engagements to excellent and mortifying 

 purposes, we may find in that wonderful relation of 

 Pontianus's two friends, great courtiers of the time, as 

 the same holy father relates it, previous to his own 

 conversion. And here I cannot omit an observation 

 of the learned Dr. Plot, in his (often-cited) Nat. Hist. 

 of Oxfordshire ; taking notice of two eminent religious 

 houses, whose foundations were occasioned by trees : 

 The first, Oseney-Abby : The second, by reason of a 

 certain tree standing in the meadows (where after was 

 built the abby) to which a company of pyes were 

 wont to repair, as oft as Editha the wife of Robert 

 d'Oyly, came to walk that way to solace her self; for 

 the clamorous birds did so affect her, that consulting 

 with one Radulphus (canon of St. Fridiswid) what it 

 might signifie, the subtle man advis'd her to build a 

 monastery where that tree stood, as if so directed by 

 the pyes in a miraculous manner : Nor was it long e'er 

 the lady procur'd her husband to do it, and to make 

 Radulphus (her confessor) first prior of it. 



Such another foundation was caus'd by a tripple 

 elm, having three trunks issuing from one root : Near 

 such a tree as this was Sir Thomas White, Lord Mayor 

 of London, warn'd by dream to erect a college for the 

 education of youth, which he did ; namely, St. John's 

 in Oxford, which with the very tree, still flourishes in 

 that famous University. But of these enough, and 

 perhaps too much. 



6. We shall now in the next place endeavour to shew 



