28 



TREATISE on 



This beautiful and magnificent tree is faid to have been firi$ 

 introduced into England by the great Lord Chancellor Bacon, who 

 planted a large parcel of them at Verulam, near London, which 

 were very llouriihing there a few years ago. The great efleem 

 the antient Perfians, Afiatics, Greeks, and Romans, (who brought 

 it from the Levant) had for it, is recorded by many hi— 

 ftorians, as that of its falubrious emiffions having prevented 

 the plague at Ifpahan in Perfia, wdiich, after a number of them 

 were planted, had not come near their dwellings, though 

 for many centuries it had. made dreadful ravages in that great 

 city. The ftory of Xerxes halting his army of feventeen hun- 

 dred thoufand men. for fome days, when on his march to in- 

 vade Greece, to admire the beauty and magnitude of one of thefe 

 venerable Planes, is well known ; as is that of the Romans moift- 

 ening them with wine inftead of water. But a relation at large 

 of thefe, and many other fuch circumftances, would exceed the 

 bounds of, and be unneceffary in a work of this kind : It is 

 therefore fufficient here to obferve, that the high efteem in which 

 thefe ancient nations held this noble tree, appears to me a flrong 

 argument of their refined tafte and judgment ; and I am heartily 

 forry to fay, tllat the negle6l of its genera! culture in thofe king- 

 doms is a reflexion on ours. It affords the moil glorious lhade 

 of any tree yet known ; and Pliny juflly obferves, there is none 

 v^hicli lb vv^ell defends us from the heat of the fun in fummer, 

 or that admits it more kindly in winter. 



Th e Italians and Turks ufed foiTuerly to build moft of their 

 fiiips with this timber; and they had them of fo enormous a fize, 

 that whole canoes, and other ^veflels for the fea,have been exca- 

 vated out of their prodigious trunks. It is hard, ciofe, takies 3. 

 nns polifh, and, is valuable for a variety of ufeful purpoies^_ 



