66 



iron-work prol:»ably converted into pikes, on the breaking out 

 of the French Revohition. 



Besides this celebrated effort in the vicinity of the capital, 

 we should be inclined to imagine, from what is said by 

 contemporary writers, that Lewis succeeded still better in 

 the provinces, in giving Immediate Effect to Wood. At Mont 

 Louis, a small town in the territory of Rousillon, at the foot 

 of the Pyrenees, Avhich he built and embellished, and which 

 was named after him, he made the most surprising 

 improvements of every soit. And unless the imagination 

 of a poet of the time has too highly coloured the description, 

 the transplanted groves, at this sequestered spot, rose with 

 such sudden luxuriance, that the birds at once flocked to 

 them, and, nestling among the branches, filled the air with 

 their melodious notes ; 



In nemus repente natum 



Aves undique devolant, 



Nidosque ponunt, hospitis sub frondibus, 



Mulcentes teneris vocibus sBthera.* 



About the middle of the seventeenth century, as wc learn 

 from Evelyn, the practice of transplanting in the French 

 way came much into use in England. No tree, he observes, 

 was found to bear the process better than the elm, or recover 

 sooner from its severity. He himself, he says, " had frequently 

 removed trees of this sort almost as big as his waist :" but he 

 first carefully " disbranched" them, leaving the whole summit 

 entire. Men of rank and affluence, Ave find, aljout the same 

 era, transplanted great trees of various kinds, with vast labour 

 and expense ; and a Devonshire nobleman in particular, 

 whose name has not Ijeen recorded, removed oaks as large 

 af5 twelve oxen could draw^, for the purpose of supplying a 

 defect in an avenue leading to one of his residences,! 



The first attempt at any thing like knowledge in the art 



* Commir. Op. Post. p. 41. t Silva, Vol. I. p. 102, 126, 



