It generally composes the avenues of the French as well 
as English gentry of that date; and Fenelon, in conform¬ 
ity with this taste, decorates with “ flowery lime-trees” 
his enchanted isle of Calypso. The bark of this, and, 
perhaps, some other species, makes the Russian garden 
mats called last. 
The smooth, light, delicately white, and uniform wood, 
useful for some domestic purposes, served Gibbons for 
his inimitable carvings of flowers, dead game, &c., so 
often seen in old English houses. An ancient lime of 
great magnitude, which grew where the ancestors of 
Linnaeus had long resided, is said to have given them 
their family name; Linn being Swedish for a lime-tree. 
The grandifolia is the wild lime-tree of Switzerland 
and the south of Europe, as the europaea is of the 
north; and many trees in those parts of astonishing size 
are recorded by Evelyn and other writers, too well 
known to need repetition. Sir J. E. Smith mentions 
some famous old limes of this species in the churcli-yard 
of Sedlitz, in Bohemia, which are reported to have 
miraculously borne hooded leaves, ever since the monks 
of a neighbouring convent were all hanged upon them. 
The lime was of great repute amongst the ancients. 
Sir VV. Temple says they chose it, along with the elm, 
the pine, and the plane-tree, for shade. He mentions a 
n 4 
