THE LIME-TREE. 



173 



figures of men, &c. I found he was likewise 

 musical, and very civil, sober, and discreet in his 

 business. There was only an old woman in the 

 house. So desiring leave to visit him some- 

 times, I went away." The amiable patron was, 

 however, disappointed in procuring a sale for the 

 work : for when the sculptor was taken to 

 Whitehall, the King, being called away, left us 

 with the Queen, believing she would have bought 

 it, it being a crucifix, but when his Majesty was 

 gone, a French peddling woman, one Madame 

 de Boord, who used to bring petticoats and fans 

 and baubles out of France to the ladies, began to 

 find fault with several things in the work, which 

 she understood no more than an ass or a monkey, 

 so as in a kind of indignation, I caused the per- 

 son who brought it to carry it back to the cham- 

 ber, finding the Queen so much governed by an 

 ignorant French woman, and this incomparable 

 artist had his labour only for his pains, which not 

 a little displeased me, and he was fain to send it 

 down to his cottage again." 



Walpole calls Gibbon " An original genius, a 

 citizen of nature. There is no instance before 

 him of a man who gave to wood the loose and 

 airy lightness of flowers, and chained together the 

 various productions of the elements, with the free 

 disorder natural to each species." Many fine 

 specimens of Gibbon's carvings still exist in their 

 original beauty at Windsor Castle, St. Paul's 

 Cathedral, and many of the mansions of the no- 

 bility. 



To the above-mentioned uses to which the 

 Lime may be applied, Loudon adds the following. 

 The Russian peasants weave the bark of the young 



