THE BOX. 



163 



highest hills in Surry clad with whole woods of 

 these trees^ for divers miles in circuit (as in those 

 delicious groves of them belonging to the Ho- 

 nourable, my Noble Friend, the late Sir Adam 

 Brown, of Beckworth Castle), might, without the 

 least violence to his imagination, fancy himself 

 transported into some new or enchanted country ; 

 for, if in any spot of England, 



* Hie ver assiduum, atque alienis mensibus ffistas, 



'tis here 



* Eternal spring and summer all the year.'" 



Most other shrubs, if left to themselves, in a few 

 years outgrow their beauty, becoming bare near 

 the ground, and assuming an unsightly, straggling 

 appearance. But the Box retains its shape for 

 many years, and, as it here forms a thick and 

 extensive coppice, it gives to the country a cha- 

 racter as pleasing as it is unusual. 



In the East it attains a much larger size than 

 with us, and is mentioned in the Sacred volume 

 in conjunction with several of the largest forest- 

 trees : I will set in the desert the fir-tree, and 

 the pine, and the box-tree together : that they may 

 see, and know, and consider, and understand to- 

 gether, that the hand of the Lord hath done this, 

 and the Holv One of Israel hath created it." 

 (Isaiah xli. 19, 20.) 



As a cultivated tree it was formerly much valu- 

 ed by practitioners of the topiary art,"^ for which it 



* Topiary work, or, the art of cutting tlie Booc and other trees into 

 artificial forms^ was carried to such an extent among the Romans, that 

 both Pliny and Yitruvius use the word topiarius to denote the art of 

 the gardener : a proof that, as far as ornament was concerned, the art 

 of clipping was considered the highest accomplishment that could be 



