CHAP. XCIX. EIVPH0KBIJ*CEM. i?u'xUS. 1339 



appears to have been equally the ease in Europe in modern times ; gardeners, 

 even so late as the time of the Commonwealth, being called by Commenius 

 pleachers (See Janua TrUinguis, Oxford edit.) About the middle of the 

 seventeenth century, the taste for verdant sculpture was at its height in 

 England ; and, about the beginning of the eighteenth, it afforded a subject of 

 raillery for the wits of the day, soon afterwards beginning to decline. There 

 are some humorous papers on the subject in the Guardian, and other contem- 

 porary works. The following lines will give a good idea of a topiary garden : — 



" There likewise mote be seen on every side 

 The shapely box, of all its branching pride 

 Ungently shorne, and, with preposterous skill, 

 To various beasts, and birds of sundry quill, 

 Transform'd, and human shapes of monstrous size. 



Also other wonders of the sportive shears, 

 Fair Nature mis-adorning, there were found : 

 Globes, spiral columns, pyramids, and piers 

 With spouting urns and budding statues crown'd ; 

 And horizontal dials on the ground, 

 In living box, by cunning artists traced ; 

 And galleys trim, on no long voyage bound, 

 But by their roots there ever anchor'd fast." 



G. West. 



In modern Gardening, the tree box forms one of our most valuable evergreen 

 shrubs or low trees. It is more particularly eligible as an undergrowth in 

 ornamental plantations ; where, partially shaded by other trees, its leaves 

 take a deeper green, and shine more conspicuously. Next to the holly, it 

 has the most beautiful appearance in winter; more especially when the 

 ground is covered with snow. The variegated sorts are admissible as objects 

 of curiosity ; but, as they are apt to lose their variegation when planted in the 

 shade, and as, in the full light, their green is frequently of a sickly yellowish 

 hue, we do not think that they can be recommended as ornamental. The 

 myrtle-leaved forms a very handsome small bush on a lawn. The use of the 

 dwarf box for edgings is familiar to every one. 



The other Uses of the box, in former times, were various ; but most of them 

 are now almost forgotten. The bark and leaves are bitter, and have a dis- 

 agreeable smell; and a decoction of them, when taken in a large dose, is said 

 to be purgative; and, in a small dose, sudorific. An empyreumatic oil is 

 extracted from them, which is said to cure the toothach and some other dis- 

 orders. A tincture was made from them, which was once a celebrated specific 

 in Germany for intermittent fevers ; but, the secret having been purchased and 

 made public by Joseph I., the medicine fell into disuse. Olivier de Serres 

 (Thedt. d'Agri.) recommends the branches and leaves of the box, as by far the 

 best manure for the grape ; not only because it is very common in the south 

 of France, but because there is no plant that by its decomposition affords a 

 greater quantity of vegetable mould. The box is said to enter into the com- 

 position of various medicated oils for strengthening and increasing the growth 

 of the hair; and Parkinson says that "the leaves and sawdust, boiled in lie, 

 will change the hair to an auburn colour." Box is sometimes substituted 

 for holly in the churches at Christmas ; and, in a note to Wordsworth's poems, 

 we are informed that, "in several parts of the north of England, when a 

 funeral takes place, a basinful of sprigs of box is placed at the door of the 

 house from which the coffin is taken up ; and each person who attends the 

 funeral takes one of these sprigs, and throws it into the grave of the deceased.'* 

 (Words. Poems, vol.i. p. 163.) The box is the badge of the Highland clan 

 M'Intosh ; and the variegated kind, of the clan M'Pherson. (Baxt. Brit. Fl. PL, 

 ii. t. 142.) Pliny affirms that no animal will eat the seed of the box ; and it is 

 said that its leaves are particularly poisonous to camels. It is also asserted by 

 many authors that box trees are never cropped by cattle ; and that the Corsican 

 honey is rendered poisonous from the bees feeding on the flowers of the box. 



Propagation and Culture. The box is propagated by seeds, cuttings, and 

 layers. It seeds freely where it is allowed to grow freely ; but, where it is 



