CEDAR OF LEBANON. 169 



do not say that they had seen it in England. 

 Aiton makes its introduction as late as 1 683, 

 when two trees of this kind were planted in 

 the physic garden at Chelsea, but as these 

 trees were three feet high when planted, it 

 is most probable that others had been previ^ 

 ously raised in this country. It is both re- 

 markable and remiss, that Miller should not 

 notice these trees in his first edition of the 

 Gardener's Dictionary, which was published in 

 1724, and which he compiled within the walls 

 that enclosed these celebrated trees. 



Tradition, whose marvellous accounts some- 

 times want correctness, tells us that Queen 

 Elizabeth planted a cedar of Lebanon, on the 

 north side of Hendon Place, in Middlesex. If 

 the birth of this tree is incorrectly registered, 

 its death is truly recorded, for it was unfor- 

 tunately blown down by the hurricane that 

 happened on the new year's day, 1779. Its 

 height was seventy feet ; the diameter of the 

 branches was one hundred feet ; the circum- 

 ference of the trunk, seven feet above the 

 ground, was sixteen feet ; and at twelve feet 

 above the ground, where it began to branch 

 out, it measured twenty-one feet. This tree, 

 which was supposed to be 200 years old, was 

 perfectly sound, and thought not to have 

 reached its maturity. 



