CELEBRATED TBEES. 191 



After mentioning this Chestnut, which has been 

 celebrated so much, I cannot forbear mentioninof 

 another, which is equally remarkable for having 

 never been celebrated at all, though it is one of the 

 largest trees that perhaps ever existed in England. 

 If it had ever been noticed merely for its bulk, I 

 should have passed it over among other gigantic 

 plants that had nothing else to boast, but as no his- 

 torian or antiquarian, so far as I have heard, has 

 taken the least notice of it, I thought it right, from 

 this very circumstance, to make up the omission by 

 giving it, at least, what little credit these papers 

 could give. This Chestnut grows at a place called 

 Wimley, near Hitchin Priory in Hertfordshire. 

 In the year 1789, at five feet above the ground, 

 its girth was somewhat more than fourteen yards. 

 Its trunk was hollow, and in part open. But its 

 vegetation was still vigorous. On one side its 

 vast arms, shooting up in various forms, some 

 upright and others oblique, were decayed and 

 peeled at the extremities, but issued from luxuriant 

 foliage at their insertion in the trunk. On the 

 other side the foliage was still full, and hid all 

 decay. 



