MYRTLE. 95 



Spenser, a poet high in the esteem of 

 Queen Elizabeth and Sir Walter Raleigh, thus 

 notices the myrtle in his " Faerie Queene." 



" Beside the same a dainty place there lay, 

 Planted with mirtle trees and laurells greene, 

 In which the birds sang many a lovely lay." 



Miller tells us in his first edition of the 

 Gardener's and Florist's Dictionary,printed in 

 1724, that " at Sir Nicholas Carew's, at Bed- 

 dington, is a myrtle of the Spanish broad- 

 leaved kind, which is above eighteen feet high, 

 and spreads above forty-five feet." If this 

 were the original tree, it would then be 156 

 years old, and most probably perished with 

 the original orange-trees, that were killed by 

 the severe winters of 1739-40, being then 

 about 160 years old. 



Evelyn says in 1678, " I know of a myrtle 

 near eighty years old, which has been conti- 

 nually exposed, unless it be, that in some ex- 

 ceeding sharp seasons a little dry straw has 

 been thrown upon it." It is most probable 

 that he alludes to the tree at Beddington, as 

 he frequently mentions in his diary having 

 been there. 



Parkinson informs us that he had three 

 varieties of myrtle growing in hLs garden in 

 1629, which were the broad-leaved, and two 

 varieties of the box-leaved. 



