s, equal to any thing of the
antients; having had the honour (for so I account it) to be the first
who recommended this great artist to his Majesty, Charles the II. I
mention it on this occasion, with much satisfaction. With the twigs,
they made baskets and cradles, and of the smoother side of the bark,
tablets for writing; for the antient _Philyra_ is but our _Tilia_; of
which Munting affirms, he saw a book made of the inward bark, written
about 1000 years since. Such another was brought to the Count of St.
Amant, Governor of Arras, 1662, for which there was given 8000 ducats by
the Emperor, and that it contain'd a work of Cicero, _De Ordinanda
Republica, & De Inveniendis Orationum Exordiis_: A piece inestimable,
never publish'd; is now in the library at Vienna, after it had formerly
been the greatest rarity in that of the late Cardinal Mazarine: Other
papyraceous trees are mention'd by West-Indian travellers, especially in
Hispaniola, Java, &c. which not only exceed our largest paper for
breadth and length, and may be written on on both sides, but is
comparable to our best vellum. Bellonius says, that the Grecians made
bottles of the _tilia_, which they finely rozin'd within-side, so
likewise for pumps of ships, also lattices for windows: Shooemakers use
dressers of the plank to cut leather on, as not so hard as to turn the
edges of their knives; and even the coursest membrane, or slivers of the
tree growing 'twixt the bark and the main body, they now twist into
bass-ropes; besides, the truncheons make a far better coal for
gun-powder than that of alder it self; Scriblets for painters first
draughts are also made of its coals; and the extraordinary candor and
lightness, has dignify'd it above all the woods of our forest, in the
hands of the Right Honourable the White-Stave officers of His Majesty's
Imperial Court. Those royal plantations of these trees in the parks of
Hampton-court, and St. James's, will sufficiently instruct any man how
these (and indeed all other trees which stand single) are to be
govern'd, and defended from the injuries of beasts, and sometimes more
unreasonable creatures, till they are able to protect themselves. In
Holland (where the very high-ways are adorn'd with them) they frequently
clap three or four deal-boards (in manner of a close trunk) about them;
but it is not so well; because it keeps out the air, which should have
free access and intercourse to the bole, and by no means be excluded
f