196 A DISCOURSE 



BOOKHL only abroad, but without traveUing into foreign countries, for these 

 ^^^^''^^ wonders. 



What goodly trees were of old adored, and consecrated by the Druids, 

 I leave to conjecture from the stories of our ancient Britons, who, had 

 they left records of their prodigies in this kind, would doubtless have 

 furnished us with examples as remarkable for the growth and stature 

 of trees, as any which we have deduced from the writers of foreign 

 countries ; since the remains of what are yet in being (notwithstanding 

 the havoc which has universally been made, and the little care to im- 

 prove our woods) may stand in fair competition with any thing that 

 antiquity can produce. 



There is somewhere in W ales an inscription extant, cut into the 

 wood of an old beam, thus : 



SEXAGINTA PEDES FUERANT IN STIPITE NOSTRO, 

 EXCEPTA COMA QU^ SPECIOSA FUIT. 



This must needs have been a noble tree, but not without later 

 parallels ; for to instance in the several species, and speak first of the 

 bulks of some immense trees, there was standing an old decayed Chest- 

 nut at Fraiting in Essex, whose very stump did yield thirty sizable 

 load of logs. I could produce you another of the same kind in Glouces- 

 tershire, which contains within the bowels of it a pretty wainscotted 

 room, enlightened with windows, and furnished with seats, kc. to an- 

 swer the Lycian Platanus lately mentioned. 



But whilst I am on this period, see what a Tilia that most learned 

 and obliged person Sir Thomas Brown, of Norwich, describes to me in 

 a letter just now received. 



" An extraordinary large and stately Tilia, Linden, or Lime-tree, there 

 groweth at Depeham, in Norfolk, ten miles from Norwich, whose mea- 

 sure is this : the compass, in the least part of the trunk or body, about 

 two yards from the ground, is at least eight yards and a half ; about the 

 root near the earth, sixteen yards ; about half a yard above that, near 

 twelve yards in circuit ; the height to the uppermost boughs about thirty 



