28 



THE CHESTNUT. 



feit to the skiey influences," during a long suc- 

 cession of revolving seasons, yet it is not left 

 entirely stripped of ornament in its old age ; as a 

 number of tender shoots spring out of its top- 

 most branches, and still give it, by the lightness 

 of their foliage, an appearance of freshness, of 

 v^hich its aged trunk would almost forbid the ex- 

 pectation. It is thirty-thxree feet at twelve feet 

 from the ground, and forty feet at the point where 

 the trunk divides. It is not improbable that the 

 Four Sisters may have attained their tenth cen- 

 tury. The other is not far off, and perhaps is 

 coeval with it. It is yet more of a wreck than 

 the first, one half of it lying, with shivered tops 

 and scattered boughs, stretched upon the ground. 



At Cotehele, a seat of the Earl of Mount Edge- 

 cumbe, on the banks of the Tamar, there are 

 some exceedingly fine trees ; one in particular, 

 though not equalling in dimensions those describ- 

 ed above, is scarcely less imposing, from its not 

 showing external symptoms of decay. A few 

 feet above the ground it branches into three, each 

 of its giant limbs being the trunk of a lofty tree 

 covered with foliage to the summit. 



There was standing," says Evelyn, an old 

 and decayed Chestnut at Fraiting, in Essex, 

 whose verj^ stump did yield thirty sizeable loads 

 of logs. I could produce you another of the same 

 kind in Gloucestershire, which contains within 

 the bowels of it a pretty wainscoted room, 

 enlightened with windows and furnished with 

 seats." 



The Chestnut-trees in Greenwich Park, some 

 of which are of great size, were planted by Evelyn, 

 and are therefore about two hundred years old. 



