OF FOREST-TREES. 



163 



the remaining roots, without any other assistance ; so as people have pro- CHAP, 

 nounced it miraculous, as I could tell you by several instances, besides 

 what Theophrastus relates, lib. v. cap. xix. of that huge Platanus which 

 rose in one night in his observation. And this puts me in mind of what 

 I remember the very learned critic Palmerius affirms of an Oak, sub- 

 verted by a late tempest near Breda, (where this old soldier militated 

 under Prince Maurice, when the town was besieged by the famous Mar- 

 quis Spinola,) which tree, after it had lain prostrate about two months, 

 (the side-branches pared off,) rose up of itself, and flourished as well as 

 ever. Which event was thought so extraordinary, that the people 

 reserved sprigs and boughs of it, as sacred reliques ; and this he affirms 

 to have seen himself. I take the more notice of these accidents, that 

 none who have trees blown down, where it may cause a deformed gap 

 in some avenue near their seats, may altogether despau' of their resurrec- 

 tion, with patience and timely freeing them. And the like to this I 

 find happened in more than one tree near Bononia in Italy, in 1657, when 

 a turbulent gust almost quite eradicated a very large tract of huge Poplars, 

 belonging to the Marchioness Elephantucca Spada. These universally 

 erected themselves again, after they were beheaded, though they lay even 

 prostrate. — Pliny, the naturalist, says, Frostratas restitid plermnque, et 

 quadam terrce cicatrice vivescere, vulgare est. Et familiarissimiim hoc 

 Platanis; quce pliirimiim ventorum concipiunt propter densitatem ramorum: 

 quibus amputatis, levatcB onere in sua scrohe reponuntur. Factumque jam 

 est hoc in Juglandihus, Oleisque, ac multis aliis. Est in exemplis, et sine 

 tempestaie, ullave causa alia quam prodigii, cecidisse multas ac sua sponte 

 resurrexisse. Factum hoc Fopuli Rom. Quiritihus ostentum Cimhricis 

 hellis Nuceri(E in luco Junonis, JJlmo, postquam etiamcacumen amputatum 

 erdt, quoniam in aram ipsam procumhehat, restituta sponte, ita ut protinus 

 Jloreret : a quo deinde tempore Majestas Fopuli Romani resurrexit, quce 

 ante vastata cladibus fuerat. Memoratur hoc idem factum et in Fhilippis, 

 Salice procidua atque detruncata : et Stagiris in Museo populo alba : 

 omnia fausti ominis. Sed maxime mirum, Antandri Flatanus etiam cir- 

 cumdolatis lateribus restibilis sponte facta, vitceque reddita longitudine 

 quindecim cubitorum, crassitudine quatuor ulnarum. Lib. xvi. cap. xxxvii. 



But as we have farther instances than these, and so very lately as that 

 dreadful storm happening November 26, 1703, when after so many 

 thousand Oaks and other timber-trees were quite subverted, a most 



