232 VOICES FROM THE WOODLANDS. 



in water, the filaments make excellent ropes and fishing-nets, 

 and the inner bark is manufactured into Bussia matting, 

 for protecting fruit-trees and for packing. My wood 

 how soft and light how smooth and close-grained how 

 privileged in never being worm-eaten ! It forms a choice 

 material for elegant Tunbridge ware; and from it the 

 celebrated sculptor Gibbons, the English Lysippus, carved 

 his fruits and flowers, of which exquisite specimens are seen 

 in the choir of St. PauPs Cathedral. 



" Smooth linden best obeys 

 The carver's chisel ; best his carious work 

 Displays in nicest touches." 



Artists, also, find my charcoaHnvaluable for sketching; and 

 with regard to the humbler uses of my wood, I may briefly 

 state, that it is preferred for leather-cutter's boards, and 

 turning. Nay, so numerous are the valuable purposes to 

 which my bark and wood, my leaves and blossoms are 

 applied, that far back as the days of Pliny I was called 

 the tree of a thousand uses. 



