DESOBIPTIVE ENUMEEATION OF TREES. 131 



winter scenery, by tlie introduction of a new and 

 beautiful evergreen. It may be so. Its growth, 

 I am told, is rapid. But from the few plants I 

 have seen of this stock, and those but young, no 

 judgment can well be formed. 



The Holly can hardly be called a tree, though 

 it is a large shrub. It is a plant, however, of 

 singular beauty. Mr. Evelyn, in his ' Sylva,' 

 cries out with rapture : ' Is there under heaven a 

 more glorious and refreshing object of the kind 

 than an impenetrable hedge of about four hundred 

 feet in length, nine feet high, and five in diameter, 

 which I can show in my garden at Say's Court, at 

 any time of the year, ghttering with its armed and 

 varnished leaves ; the taller standards at orderly 

 distances blushing with their natural coral — shorn 

 and fashioned into columns and pilasters, archi- 

 tectionally shaped, at due distance ? ' 



Though we cannot accord with the learned 

 naturalist in the whole of this rapturous enco- 

 mium on the hedge at Say's Court, yet in part 

 we agree with him, and admire, as much as he 

 does, the Holly glittering with its armed and var- 

 nished leaves, and blushing with its natural coral. 



