198 VOICES FROM THE WOODLANDS. 



rose-water, and which, when sprinkled with grated Parme- 

 san, are fried in fresh butter. 



Time was when my nuts accompanied the wassail-bowl 

 at Christmas festivities ; and Milton, when deploring the 

 death of his friend Diodati, and lamenting the few resources 

 of his lonely dwelling, whereby 



"to cheat the lonely night," 

 alludes to their most ordinary domestic uses. 



" While hisses on my hearth the pulpy pear, 

 And hlackening chestnuts start and crackle there." 



I have spoken of my great age. My girth, at the height 

 of six feet from the ground, was forty-six feet and six inches, 

 about one hundred years since. In the time of ruthless 

 John, I measured eleven yards in circumference, towering 

 above my tributary trees, and commanding a vast panoramic 

 view from my topmost boughs. 



Strutt speaks of a brother chestnut, growing in Cobham 

 Park, which measures thirty-three feet at twelve from the 



