Thus far Pliny. And such spotted tables were the famous Tigrin, and Pantherine curiosities of; not so call’d from being supported with figures carved like those beasts, as some conceive, and was in use even in our grand-fathers days, but from its natural spots and maculations, _hem, quantis facultatibus æstimavere ligneas maculas!_ as Tertullian crys out, _de Pallio_, c, 5. Such a table was that of Cicero’s, which cost him 10000 _Sesterces_; such another had Asinius Gallus. That of King Juba was sold for 15000, and another which I read of, valu’d at 140000 H.S. which at about 3d. sterling, arrives to a pretty sum; and yet that of the Mauritanian Ptoleme, was far richer, containing four foot and an half diameter, three inches thick, which is reported to have been sold for its weight in gold: Of that value they were, and so madly luxurious the age, that when they at any time reproach’d their wives for their wanton expensiveness in pearl and other rich trifles, they were wont to retort, and turn the tables upon their husbands. The knot of the timber was the most esteem’d, and is said to be much resembled by the female cypress: We have now, I am almost persuaded, as beautiful planks of some walnut-trees, near the root; and yew, ivy, rose-wood, ash, thorn, and olive, I have seen incomparable pieces; but the great art was in the seasoning, and politure; for which last, the rubbing with a man’s hand who came warm out of the bath, was accounted better than any cloth, as Pliny reports. Some there be who contend, this citern was a part near the root of the cedar, which, as they describe it, is very oriental and odoriferous; but most of the learned favour the citron, and that it grew not far from our Tangier, about the foot of Mount Atlas, whence haply some industrious person might procure of it from the Moors; and I did not forget to put his then Excellency my Lord H. Howard (since his Grace the Duke of Norfolk) in mind of it; who I hoped might have opportunities of satisfying our curiosity, that by comparing it with those elegant woods, which both our own countries, and the Indies furnish, we might pronounce something in the controversie: But his not going so far into the countrey, and the disorder which happen’d at his being there, quite frustrated this expectation: Here I think good to add, what honest Palissy philosophises after his plain manner, about the reason of those pretty undulations and chamfers, which we so frequently find in divers woods, which he takes to be the descent, as well as ascent of moisture: For what else (says he) becomes of that water which we often encounter in the cavities, when many branches divaricate, and spread themselves at the tops of great trees (especially pollards) unless (according to its natural appetite) it sink into the very body of the stem through the pores? For example, in the walnut, you shall find, when ’tis old, that the wood is admirably figur’d, and, as it were, marbl’d, and therefore