THE OAK. 37 



It will be seen by the extract from Evelyn's Sylva, that 

 in 1662 it had ceased to be a living monument of the 

 event to which it owes its celebrity. Not many years after, 

 its poor remains were fenced in by a "handsome brick 

 wall ; " but all in vain. Every vestige of the original tree 

 has disappeared from the spot for more than a century. 

 Mr. Dale thinks, from inquiries made in the vicinity from 

 persons whose age, if they were now alive, would exceed 

 a hundred, that the last remnants were taken away about 

 the year 1734. 



The handsome brick wall above alluded to stood until 

 1817, having been repaired in 1787 by Basil and Eliza 

 Fitzherbert, who also attached a new inscription. Mr. 

 Dale has been unable to discover any written account 

 of the second tree thus inclosed. By general tradition, 

 however, it sprung from an acorn of the Eoyal Oak, and 

 this is credible enough ; for whoever took the pains to rear 

 young trees for St. James's Park and the Chelsea Gardens, 

 doubtless did all in his power to perpetuate the race on the 

 spot where the event took place. Erom the inscription 

 of 1787, it would seem that Basil and Eliza Fitzherbert 

 believed the tree then standing to have been the identical 

 one in which the Sovereign took shelter. But although 

 they were mistaken in this respect, it must have attained 

 a considerable size, or they could not have fallen into such 

 an error. From this and other circumstances it appears 

 tolerably certain that the tree now standing is the immediate 

 descendant of the Royal Oak, and that it was planted 

 about the time of the Restoration in 1660, as nearly in the 

 same site as the remains of the old tree would allow, some 

 of the old people alluded to above recollecting that it did 

 not stand in the centre of the old inclosure. 



Some notion of the value of a well-grown Oak in its 

 prime may be formed from the following account of the 

 feUing, in the year 1738, of a tree in Langley Wood, on 

 the borders of the Kew Forest, and of another in Mon- 

 mouthshire. The former of these, Mr. South tells us, 



