BOX-TREE. 149 



following account of the efficacy of box-wood 

 in making hair grow : " A young woman in 

 Gunbery, in Lower Silesia, having had a ma- 

 lignant dysentery which occasioned the fall- 

 ing off of all her hair, was advised by a per- 

 son some time after her recovery (as her hair 

 was not likely to grow again of itself, her 

 head being then as bare as the hand) to wash 

 it all over with a decoction of box-wood, which 

 she readily did, without the addition of any 

 other drug. Hair of a chesnut colour grew 

 on her head, as she was told it would do ; but 

 having used no precaution to secure her face 

 and neck from the lotion, they became covered 

 with red hair to such a degree, that she 

 seemed but little different from an ape or a 

 monkey." 



If this poor Silesian girl was actually thus 

 disfigured by the box, it was not more than 

 the box-tree itself has been disfigured in our 

 old gardens ; where, by the aid of shears, it 

 was metamorphosed into Harlequins and Co- 

 lumbines ; and even at present we sometimes 

 see the attempt of transforming it's branches 

 into vegetable peacocks and leafy urns, which 

 must be as offensive to Silvanus as it is to 

 nature. Pliny tells us, that it was used in the 

 Roman gardens to divide them into squares, 



&c.* where it was kept thick by clipping. It 



L 3 



