CHAP. II. 



BRITISH ISLANDS. 



2i 



not have been the first that were brought into the country. The 

 Tilia europ8e\ or common lime tree of the north of Europe, 

 is stated by Turner and Gerard to be a native of England; but 

 Ray says, that, though it is an inhabitant of Essex, it is never 

 found in that county, or anywhere else, growing wild. The 

 Tilia parvifolia, Ray seems to consider as a native. 



The box is one of our most interesting " disputed trees ; " 

 for, if we are deprived of that and of the yew, neither of which 

 Daines Barrington will allow us, our only evergreen trees 

 will be the Scotch pine and the holly. Ray says that " the box 

 grows wild on Box Hill, hence the name : also at Boxwell, on 

 Cotswold in Gloucestershire, and at Boxley in Kent, where 

 there were woods of this tree, according to Aubrey. It grows 

 plentifully on the chalk hills near Dunstable." Turner says, 

 " it groweth on the mountains in Germany plentifully, wild, 

 without any setting ; but in England it groweth not by itself in 

 any place that I know, though there is much of it in England." 

 {Herbal, edit. 1551, p. 159.) Parkinson says it is found in 

 many woods, and that it is also planted in orchards. Evelyn 

 considers it a native, as does Lambarde, in his Perambulations 

 of Kent, in 1576. Some curious controversial matter on this 

 subject will be found in the Gentleman' s Magazine, vol. Ivii., for 

 1787. One writer, T. H. White (p. 667.), says, " he called at 

 the village of Boxley, and that, from the strictest enquiries, he 

 was thoroughly convinced that Evelyn was wrong in considering 

 the box to grow wild at this village." It has been said that 

 the Earl of Arundel, who died in Italy in 1646, planted the box 

 trees on Box Hill, with a view to building a house there ; but this 

 is denied by another writer, S. H., in the same magazine. " The 

 Earl of Arundel," this writer says, " was a very curious man; and, 

 having a house very near, at Dorking, it has been conjectured, 

 but without foundation, that he planted Box Hill. The ground 

 on which the box trees grow," he continues, " was not His Lord- 

 ship's property ; " and this is confirmed by a passage in Manning 

 and Bray's Smrey, where that part of the hill which is covered 

 with the trees is proved to have belonged to Sir Matthew Brown,, 

 long before the date when they were said to have been planted 

 by the earl. " Various have been the disquisitions," say these 

 authors, concerning the antiquity of this plantation, which, 

 however, for aught that has hitherto appeared to the contrary, 

 may have been coeval with , the soil. Here was formerly also a 

 warren, with its lodge ; in a lease of which, from Sir Matthew 

 Brown to Thomas Constable, dated 25th August, 1602, the 

 tenant covenants to use his best endeavours for preserving the 

 yew, box, and all other trees growing thereupon ; as also to-, 

 deliver, half-yearly, an account of what hath been sold, to whom, 

 and at what prices ; and in an account rendered to Ambrose, 



