296 



A DISCOURSE 



BOOK nr. Nor will it here be unseasonable to advise, that where trees aremani- 

 ""-^'"^r^*^ festly perceived to decay, they be marked out for the axe, that so the 

 younger may come on for a supply, especially where they are chiefly 

 Elms, because their successors hasten to their height and perfection in a 

 competent time ; but beginning once to grow sick of age, or other in- 

 firmity, suddenly impair, and lose much of their value yearly ; besides, 

 that the increase of this, and other speedy timber, would spare the Oak 

 for navigation and the sturdier uses. 



How goodly a sight were it, if most of the demesnes of our country 

 gentlemen were crowned and encircled with such stately rows of Limes, 

 Firs, Elms, and other ample, shady, and venerable trees, as adorn New- 

 hall, in Essex, the seat of that Suffolk knight near Yarmouth ; our neigh- 

 bouring pasture at Barnes ; with what has been planted of later years 

 by the illustrious marquis of Worcester ; the most accomplished earl 

 of Essex ; and even in less fertile soils, though purer air, at Euston by 

 the right hon. the earl of Arlington, lord chamberlain of his majesty's 

 household ; and at Cornbury, by the late lord chancellor, the earl of 

 Clarendon ; and what is done nearer this imperial city by the earl of 

 Danby, late lord high-treasurer of England, at Wimbleton ; the noble 

 earl of Rochester (succeeding him in that supreme office) at New-park ; 

 the duke of Norfolk at Alberry, now the lord Guernsey's; sir Robert 

 Coke at Durdans, near Epsom, now my lord Berkeley's; and at Bedding- 

 ton, an ancient seat of the Carews, famous for the first Orange-trees 

 planted in the naked earth one hundred years since, and still flourishing. 



Besides what might have been seen, (as by me they were in perfection 

 and with admiration,) the royal seats of Oatland, Richmond, and above 

 all, Nonsuch, described by the judicious Camden, with deserved eulogies. 



All these, and more, in my own sweet county of Surry, inferior to 

 none for pleasure and salubrity of the air ; to which we add the princely 

 sejourns of the adjoining county, Eltham, and Greenwhich for its park 

 and prospect, not only emulous, but in many respects, exceeding that 

 of that famous Thracian Bosphorus from Constantinople : that palace, 

 namely at Greenwich, now turnedintoa stately and capacious college, (the 

 incomparable work of that accomplished architect Sir Christopher Wren,) 

 of which I had the honour to lay the first foundation-stone, as the first 

 treasure of that royal structure, erected for the reception and encou- 



