214 SYLVA FLOKIFERA. 



with her own hands at Chelsea, where she 

 spent a part of her early days in a palace be- 

 longing to her father. This elm stood at the 

 upper end of Church-lane, near the place 

 where the turnpike now is, and was a boun- 

 dary of the parish on the north side. It was 

 felled, to the great regret of the neighbour- 

 hood, on the eleventh of November, 1745, 

 and sold for a guinea, by the lord of the 

 manor, who was no other than the worthy Sir 

 Hans Sloane, which induces us to think that 

 the tree must have become dangerous, or a 

 nuisance to the road. It was 13 feet in cir- 

 cumference at bottom, and 6 feet 6 inches at 

 the height of 44 feet : before the hard frost 

 of 1739-40, which injured its top, it mea- 

 sured 110 feet from the ground. It was in 

 the year 1600 that Sir Francis Bacon planted 

 Gray's-inn walks with elms, eight of which 

 were standing in the middle of the last 

 century. 



Under the shade of these trees many a vir- 

 tuous and worthy man studied for the good 

 of his country ; for 



" Law was design'd to keep a state in peace ; 

 To punish robbery, that wrong might cease; 

 To be impregnable ; a constant fort, 

 To which the weak and injur'd might resort : 

 But now perverted minds its force employ, 

 Not to protect mankind, but to annoy ; 



