degree, thinned this country of oak-trees, still we have many oaks left of extraordinary great age and bulk, and the sturdy oak, A prince's refuge once, th' eternal guard Of England's throne, by sweating peasants fell'd, Awes the divided world to peace and love. Phillips. The celebrated oak in Hainault Forest, Essex, known by the name of Fairlop, is thus mentioned by the late Rev. Mr. Gilpin : "The tradition of the country," says this ingenious writer, "traces it half way up the christian era. It is still a noble tree, though it has suffered greatly from the depredations of time. About a yard from the ground, where its rough fluted stem is thirty-six feet in circumference, it divides into eleven vast arms, which overspread an area of three hundred feet in circuit: beneath this shade an annual fair has long been held on the 2d of July; but no booth is suffered to be erected beyond the extent of its boughs." In Bloomfield wood, near Ludlow, in Shropshire, is an oak-tree belonging to Lord Powis, the trunk of which, in 1765, measured sixty-eight feet in girth, thirty-two in length, and which, reckoning ninety feet for the larger branches, contained in the whole 1,455 feet of timber, round measure, or twenty nine loads and five feet, at fifty feet to a load. In the vale of Gloucestershire, near the turnpike road between Cheltenham and Tewksbury, stands the Baddington oak, the stem of whose trunk is fifty-four feet, and some of its branches extend to eight yards from the body of the tree. The famous oak, Robur Britannicum, in Lord Norrey's Park, at Prescot, was computed to be able to shelter between three and four thousand men. Dr. Plot, in his Oxfordshire, tells us of an oak near Clifton, that spread eighty-one feet from bough-end to bough-end, and shaded 560 square yards. In Worksop Park, the Duke of Norfolk had an oak which spread almost 3,000 square yards, and near 1,000 horse might stand under the shade. I have been favoured with the particular dimensions of the large oak that was felled on the Gelin's estate, in the parish of Bassaley, and within four miles of the town of Newport, in the county of Monmouth, in 1810, as communicated by the Earl of Stamford to Sir Joseph Banks. Four men were three weeks and two days in felling and stripping the tree. There were 85 pieces of square or hewn timber: the squarers were three weeks and four days in squaring it. One pair of sawyers had been five months in sawing the tree, and had not finished when this account was sent. (Mar. 6th, 1811.) The tree was purchased by Mr. Thomas Harrison for one hundred guineas. Part of an oak-tree, twenty feet in circumference, was drawn out of the Thames in September, 1815, near the ferry at Twickenham, with great difficulty, by twenty-four horses it is known to have laid in the river one hundred and fifty years. The timber of the oak-tree is so well known, and so justly esteemed, for a variety of purposes, that it would be superfluous to state the whole of them. In building ships of war, one great advan tage is, that it seldom splinters, which caused foreigners to attribute our naval vic tories to the excellency of our timber; but the late war has given so many proofs of our defeating our enemies with ships of their own building, that they must now acknowledge that the bravery of a British sailor is as firm as the heart of an English oak. It was not until we had manufactured into furniture all the curious woods of the New World, that the transcendent splendor of the English oak was brought to any degree of perfection by the late Mr. Bullock, of Tenterden-street, and other eminent cabinetmakers. Mr. Penning, of Holles-street, Cavendish-square, who I am informed has been the most successful in the choice of this wood, has lately wrought up some old oaktrees of such matchless beauty, that one set of dining-tables brought him the unheard-of price of six hundred pounds. This far exceeds any thing of the kind we read of, even in the luxurious days of the Romans, although Pliny says, "Our wives at home twit us, their husbands, for our expensive tables, when we seem to find fault with their costly pearls." "There is at this day to be seen," says this author, "a board of citron wood, belonging formerly to M. Tullius Cicero, which cost him ten thousand sesterces; a strange cir cumstance, as he was not rich." He also mentions a table that belonged to Gallus Asinius, which sold for eleven thousand sesterces, which is about equal to £70 of our money; and he particularises a table of citron-wood that came from Ptolemæus, king of Mauritania, which was made in two demirounds, or half circles, joined together so cleverly, that the joints could not be discovered the diameter of it was four feet and a half, and three inches in thickness. It is related that they set great store on woods of curious grains: some there are mentioned with curling veins, which were called tigrinæ (tiger tables); others, panthernæ (panther); and some are described waved like the sea, and spotted like the peacock's tail. But those of the highest value were of the colour of honey-wine, with shining and glittering veins, or lamprey-veined, running across. I have ventured to make this digression, having seen within these last few years oak of such various grains, that out of them the whole of the above-mentioned, and many other curious representations, might have been selected. The bark of the oak-tree is a most valuable article for the purpose of tanning; and it is by the aid of this bark, that our English |