Part 8

Ye Lime-trees, ranged before this hallowed urn, Shoot forth with lively power at spring's return; And be not slow a stately growth to rear Of pillars, branching off from year to year, Till they have learned to frame a darksome aisle,-- That may recal to mind that awful pile Where Reynolds, 'mid our country's noblest dead, In the last sanctity of fame is laid. There, though by right the excelling painter sleep, Where death and glory a joint Sabbath keep; Yet not the less his spirit would hold dear Self-hidden praise, and friendship's private tear; Hence, on my patrimonial grounds, have I Raised this frail tribute to his memory; From youth a zealous follower of the art That he professed, attached to him in heart; Admiring, loving, and with grief and pride, Feeling what England lost when Reynolds died.

Loudon speaks of two ancient Lime-trees at Zoffingen, on the branches of which is placed a plank, in such a manner as to enable any one to walk from the one to the other; and thus people may not only walk, but even dance, upon the foliage of the tree. In the village of Villars en Morig, near Fribourg, there is a large Lime which existed there long before the battle of Morat (1476), and which is now of extraordinary dimensions; it was, in 1831, seventy feet high, and thirty-six feet in circumference at four feet from the ground, where it divided into large and perfectly sound branches. It must be nearly a thousand years old. And at Fribourg, in the public square, there is a large Lime, the branches of which are supported by pieces of wood. This tree was planted on the day when the victory was proclaimed of the Swiss over the Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold, in the year 1476; and it is a monument admirably accordant with the then feebleness of the Swiss republics, and the extreme simplicity of their manners. In 1831 the trunk of this tree measured thirteen feet nine inches in circumference.

Botanically considered, the Common Lime is a large and handsome tree with spreading branches, thickly clothed with leaves twice the length of their petioles, cordate at the base, serrate, pointed, smooth--except a woolly tuft at the origin of each nerve beneath--unequal and entire at the base; stipules oval, smooth, in pairs at the base of each foot-stalk; flower-stalks axillar, cymose, each bearing an oblong, pale, smooth bract, united, for half its length, with the stalk; flowers of a greenish colour, growing in clusters of four or five together, and highly fragrant, especially at night. This renders them very attractive to the bees, which is referred to by Virgil, in his beautiful description of the industrious Corycian, thus translated by Martyn:--"He therefore was the first to abound with pregnant bees, and plentiful swarms, and to squeeze the frothing honey from the combs. He had Limes, and plenty of pines; and as many fruits as showed themselves in early blossom, so many did he gather ripe in early autumn."--_Geo._ iv. 127.

The seeds of the Linden-tree rarely ripen in Britain; this tree is, therefore, properly propagated by layers, which must be made in the nursery in autumn; in one year they become rooted so as to allow of being removed. It will grow well in any soil or situation, but if planted in a rich loamy earth, the rapidity of its growth will be almost incredible. The timber of the Lime-tree is very serviceable, and much preferable to that of the willow, being stronger yet lighter. Because of its colour, which is of a pale yellow or white, and its easy working, and not being liable to split, architects form with it their models for buildings. The most elegant use to which it is applied is for carving, not only for small figures, but large statues in basso and alto relievo, as that of the Stoning of St. Stephen, with the structures and elevations about it; the trophies, festoons, fruitages, friezes, capitals, pedestals, and other ornaments and decorations about the choir of St. Paul's, executed by Gibbons, and other carvings by the same artist at Chatsworth, the seat of the Duke of Devonshire, and in Trinity College Library at Cambridge. It is even supposed by some that the blocks employed by Holbein, for wood engravings, were of this tree. Dodsley says--

Smooth Linden best obeys The carver's chisel; best his curious work Displays, in all its nicest touches.

It is used by piano-forte makers for sounding-boards, and by cabinet-makers for a variety of purposes. The wood is also said to make excellent charcoal for gunpowder, even better than alder, and nearly as good as hazel, while baskets and cradles are made with the twigs of the Lime; and of the smoother side of the bark, tablets for writing; for the ancient Philyra is but our Tilia, of which Munting affirms he saw a book, made of the inner bark, written about 1000 years ago; such another was brought to the Count of St. Amant, governor of Arras, 1662, for which there were given 8000 ducats by the Emperor. It contains a work of Cicero, _De ordinanda Republica et de Inveniendis Orationum Exordiis_, which is still unprinted, and is now in the imperial library of Vienna, after having been the greatest rarity in that of the celebrated Cardinal Mazarin, who died in 1661.

The smoothness of the Lime-tree is thus alluded to by Cowper in the _Task_:

Here the gray smooth trunks Of ash, or Lime, or beech, distinctly shine Within the twilight of their distant shades, There lost behind a rising ground, the wood Seems sunk and shortened to its topmost boughs.

This peculiarity of the bark has also been noticed by Leigh Hunt, in the story of _Rimini_:

Places of nestling green for poets made, Where, when the sunshine struck a yellow shade, The slender trunks to inward peeping sight, Thronged, in dark pillars, up the gold-green light.

The leaves of the Lime-tree are also useful, and were esteemed so in common with those of the elm and poplar, both in a dried and green state for feeding cattle, by the Romans.

The other two indigenous or naturalized species of Lime are--

2. _The broad-leaved, T. grandifolia._ Ehrh. Flowers without nectaries; leaves roundish, cordate, pointed, serrate, downy, especially beneath, with hairy tufts at the origin of the veins; capsule turbinate, with prominent angles, downy.----_Flowers_ in August: found in woods and hedges.

3. _The small-leaved, T. parvifolia._ Ehrh. Flowers without nectaries; leaves scarcely longer than their petioles, roundish, cordate, serrate, pointed, glaucous beneath, with hairy tufts at the origin of the veins, and scattered hairy blotches; capsule roundish, with slender ribs, thin, brittle, nearly smooth.----_A handsome_ tree, distinguished from the former by its much smaller leaves and flowers: germen densely woolly: flowers in August: grows in woods in Essex, Sussex, &c.: frequent.

THE MAPLE-TREE.

[_Acer._[L] Nat. Ord.--_Aceraceæ_; Linn. _Octan. Monog._]

[L] _Generic characters._ Calyx inferior, 5-cleft. Petals 5, obovate. Fruit consisting of 2 capsules, united at the base, indehiscent and winged (a _samara_). Trees, with simple leaves and flowers, often polygamous, in axillary corymbs or racemes.

The Common Maple (_A. campestre_) is found throughout the middle states of Europe, and in the north of Asia. It is common in hedges and thickets in the middle and south of England, but is rare in the northern counties and in Scotland, and is not indigenous in Ireland. It is a rather small tree, of no great figure, so that it is seldom seen employed in any nobler service than in filling up a part in a hedge, in company with thorns and briers. In a few instances, where it is met with in a state of maturity, its form appears picturesque. It is not much unlike the oak, only it is more bushy, and its branches are closer and more compact. Although it seldom attains a height of more than twenty feet, yet in favourable situations it rises to forty feet, as may be seen in Eastwell Park, Kent, and in Caversham Park, near Reading. The Rev. William Gilpin, from whose _Remarks on Forest Scenery_ we have derived much interesting matter, is buried under the shade of a very large Maple in the church-yard of Boldre, in the New Forest, Hampshire.

The botanical characters of _A. campestre_ are:--_Leaves_ about one and a half inch in width, downy while young, as are their foot-stalks, obtusely five-lobed, here and there notched, sometimes quite entire. Flowers green, in clusters that terminate the young shoots, hairy, erect, short, and somewhat corymbose. Anthers hairy between the lobes. Capsules downy, spreading horizontally, with smooth, oblong, reddish wings. Bark corky, and full of fissures; that of the branches smooth. Flowers in May and June.

The ancients held this tree in great repute. Ovid compares it to the Lime:

The Maple not unlike the lime-tree grows, Like her, her spreading arms abroad she throws, Well clothed with leaves, but that the Maple's bole Is clad by nature with a ruder stole.

Pliny speaks as highly of its knobs and its excrescences, called the _brusca_ and _mollusca_, as Dr. Plot does of those of the ash. The veins of these excrescences in the Maple, Pliny tells us, were so variegated that they exceeded the beauty of any other wood, even of the citron; though the citron was in such repute at Rome, that Cicero, who was neither rich nor expensive, was tempted to give 10,000 sesterces for a citron table. The brusca and mollusca, Pliny adds, were rarely of a size sufficient for the larger species of furniture, but in all smaller cabinet-work they were inestimable. Indeed, the whole tree was esteemed by the ancients on account of its variegated wood, especially the white, which is singularly beautiful. This is called the French Maple, and grows in northern Italy, between the Po and the Alps; the other has a curled grain, so curiously spotted, that it was called, from a near resemblance, the peacock's tail. So mad were people formerly in searching for the representations of birds, beasts, and other objects in the bruscum of this tree, that they spared no expense in procuring it.

The timber is used for musical instruments, inlaying, &c., and is reckoned superior to most woods for turnery ware. Our poets generally place a Maple dish in every hermitage they speak of.

Methinks that to some vacant hermitage My feet would rather turn,--to some dry nook Scooped out of living rock, and near a brook Hurled down a mountain-cave, from stage to stage, Yet tempering, for my sight, its bustling rage In the soft haven of a translucent pool; Thence creeping under forest arches cool, Fit haunt of shapes whose glorious equipage Would elevate my dreams. A beechen bowl, A Maple dish, my furniture should be; Crisp, yellow leaves my bed; the hooting owl My night-watch; nor should e'er the crested fowl From thorp or vil his matins sound for me, Tired of the world and all its industry.

Wordsworth, _Eccl. Sk._, 22.

Wilson and Cowper also furnish the hermit's cell with a Maple dish, while Mason notes one that lacked this article, deemed so requisite for such a habitation:

--Many a visitant Had sat within his hospitable cave; From his Maple bowl, the unpolluted spring Drunk fearless, and with him partook the bread That his pale lips most reverently had blessed, With words becoming such a holy man.

His dwelling a recess in some rude rock, Books, beads, and Maple dish his meagre stock.

--It seemed a hermit's cell, Yet void of hour-glass, skull, and Maple dish.

There is an American species of the Maple, _A. saccharinum_, which yields a considerable quantity of sap, from which the Canadians make sugar of an average quality. The season for tapping the trees is in February, March, and April. From a pint to five gallons of syrup may be obtained from one tree in a day; though, when a frosty night is succeeded by a dry and brilliant day, the rush of sap is much greater. The yearly product of sugar from each tree is about three pounds. Trees which grow in lone and moist places, afford a greater quantity of sap than those which occupy rising ground; but it is less rich in the saccharine principle. That of insulated trees, left standing in the middle of fields, or by the side of fences, is the best. It is also remarked, that in districts which have been cleared of other trees, and even of the less vigorous sugar maples, the product of the remainder is proportionally greater. The sap is converted into sugar by boiling, till reduced to the proper consistency for being poured into moulds.

There are now cultivated in England more than twenty species of Maple, brought from every quarter of the globe, several of which are likely to prove hardy. They are among the most ornamental trees of artificial plantations, on account of the great beauty and variety of their foliage, which changes to a fine scarlet, or rich yellow, in autumn. The larger growing species are often many years before they come to flower, and, after they do so, they sometimes flower several years before they mature seeds.

THE MOUNTAIN-ASH, OR ROWAN-TREE.

[_Pyrus._[M] Nat. Ord.--_Rosaceæ_; Linn.--_Icosand. Pentag._]

[M] _Generic characters._ Calyx superior, monosepalous, 5-cleft. Petals 5. Styles 2 to 5. Fruit a _pome_, 5-celled, each cell 2-seeded, cartilaginous.

The Mountain-Ash (_P. aucuparia_) is a native of most parts of Europe, and western Asia. It is also found in Japan, and in the most northern parts of North America. In Britain it is common in woods and hedges in mountainous, but rather moist situations, in every part of the island, and also in Ireland. It forms an erect-stemmed tree, with an orbicular head. When fully grown, like every other description of _Pyrus_, it assumes a somewhat formal character, but in a young state its branches are disposed in a more loose and graceful manner. In the Scottish Highlands, according to Lauder, "it becomes a considerable tree. There, on some rocky mountain covered with dark pines and waving birch, which cast a solemn gloom over the lake below, a few Mountain-Ashes, joining in a clump, and mixing with them, have a fine effect. In summer the light green tint of their foliage, and in autumn the glowing berries which hang clustering upon them, contrast beautifully with the deeper green of the pines; and if they are happily blended, and not in too large a proportion, they add some of the most picturesque furniture with which the sides of those rugged mountains are invested."

The stems of the Mountain-Ash are covered with a smooth gray bark, and the branches, while young, have a smooth purplish bark. The leaves are pinnate, downy beneath, serrated; panicle corymbose, with downy stalks; flowers numerous, white; fruit globose, scarlet, acid, and austere. Flowers in May and June.

The Mountain-Ash is almost always raised from seed, which may be sown any time from November to February. The tree grows rapidly for the first three or four years, attaining, in five years, the height of from eight to nine feet; after which it begins to form a head, and, in ten years, will attain the height of twenty feet. As it grows rapidly, even in the most exposed situations, it forms an admirable nurse-tree to the oak, and other slow-growing species; the more so as it is incapable of being drawn up by culture above a certain height, thereafter quietly submitting to be over-topped and destroyed, by the shade and drip of those which it was planted to shelter and protect. It is frequently planted for coppice-wood, the shoots being well adapted for poles, and for hoops, and the bark being in demand by tanners. The wood is fine-grained, hard, capable of being stained any colour, and of taking a high polish. It is much used for the husbandman's tools, goads, &c., and the wheelwright values it on account of its being homogeneous, or all heart. If the tree be large and fully grown, it will yield planks, boards, and timber. Next to the yew it was useful for bows--a circumstance we ought not to omit recording, if it were only to perpetuate the celebrity of our once English ancestors. It is named in a statute of Henry VIII. as being serviceable for this purpose. It makes excellent fuel; though Evelyn says he never observed any use, except that the blossoms are of an agreeable scent, and the berries offer such temptation to the thrushes, that, as long as they last, you may be sure of their company. Ale and beer brewed with these berries, being ripe, is esteemed an incomparable drink. In Wales, this tree is reputed so sacred, that there is scarcely a church-yard without one of them growing therein. And formerly--and, we believe, in some parts even now--on a certain day in the year many persons religiously wore a cross made of the wood.

Keats, in his early poems, notices the loftiness of this tree, and its waving head:

--He was withal A man of elegance and stature tall; So that the waving of his plumes would be High as the berries of a wild Ash-tree, Or the winged cap of Mercury.

In former days, when superstition prevailed, the Mountain-Ash was considered an object of great veneration. Often at this day a stump of it is found in some old burying-place, or near the circle of a Druid temple, whose rites it formerly invested with its sacred shade. It was supposed to be, and in some places still is esteemed to be, possessed of the property of driving away witches and evil spirits, and this property is recorded in one of the stanzas of a very ancient song, called the _Laidley Worm of Spindleston Heughs:_

Their spells were vain, the hags return'd To the queen, in sorrowful mood, Crying that witches have no pow'r Where there is roan-tree wood.

That the superstition respecting the virtues of this tree does exist in Yorkshire at the present day, we know, and of the truth of the following anecdote, related by Waterton, the author of the celebrated _Wanderings_, we have not the slightest doubt; it is printed in one of his communications to the _Magazine of Natural History_:--"In the village of Walton," says Mr. Waterton, "I have two small tenants; the name of one is James Simpson, and that of the other Sally Holloway; and Sally's stands a little before the house of Simpson. Some three months ago I overtook Simpson on the turnpike road, and I asked him if his cow was getting better, for his son had told me that she had fallen sick. 'She's coming on surprisingly, Sir,' quoth he; 'the last time the cow-doctor came to see her, "Jem," said he to me, looking earnestly at Old Sally's house; "Jem," said he, "mind and keep your cowhouse door shut before the sun goes down, otherwise I won't answer for what may happen to the cow." "Ay, ay, my lad," said I, "I understand your meaning; but I am up to the old slut, and I defy her to do me any harm now!"' 'And what has Old Sally been doing to you, James?' said I. 'Why, Sir,' replied he, 'we all know too well what she can do. She has long owed me a grudge; and my cow, which was in very good health, fell sick immediately after Sally had been seen to look in at the door of the cowhouse, just as night was coming on. The cow grew worse, and so I went and cut a bit of wiggin (Mountain-Ash), and I nailed the branches all up and down the cowhouse; and, Sir, you may see them there if you will take the trouble to step in. I am a match for Old Sally now, and she can't do me any more harm, so long as the wiggin branches hang in the place where I have nailed them. My poor cow will get better in spite of her.' Alas! thought I to myself, as the deluded man was finishing his story, how much there is yet to be done in our own country by the schoolmaster of the nineteenth century!"

The Mountain-Ash, so esteemed among our northern neighbours as a protection against the evil designs of wizards and witches, is propagated by the Parisians for a very different purpose. It is used as one of the principal charms for enticing the French belles into the public gardens, where they are permitted to use all the spells and witcheries of which they are mistresses; and certainly this tree, ornamented by its brilliant scarlet fruit, has a most enchanting appearance when lighted up with lamps, in the months of August and September.

The varieties of the Mountain-Ash are:--

2. _P. fructu luteo_, with yellow berries. 3. _P. foliis variegatis_, with variegated leaves. 4. _P. fastigiata_, with the branches upright and rigid. 5. _P. pinnatifida_, with deeply pinnatified leaves.

THE BLACK-FRUITED MULBERRY.

[_Morus nigra._[N] Nat. Ord.--_Urticaceæ_; Linn.--_Monoec. Tetra._]

[N] _Morus. Flowers_ unisexual; _barren_ flowers disposed in a drooping, peduncled, axillary spike; _fertile_ flowers in ovate, erect spikes. _Calyx_ of 4 equal sepals, imbricate in estivation, expanded in flowering. _Stamens_ 4. _Ovary_ 2-celled, one including one pendulous ovate, the other devoid of any. _Stigmas_ 2, long. Seed pendulous.

The Black-fruited, or Common Mulberry, is generally supposed to be a native of Persia, where there are still masses of it found in a wild state. It was first brought to England in 1548, when some trees were planted at Sion, near London, one of which still survives. About 1608 James I. recommended by royal edict, and by letter in his own writing to the lord-lieutenant of every county, the planting of Mulberry-trees and the rearing of silk-worms, which are fed upon the leaves; also offering plants at three farthings each, and packets of Mulberry seeds to all who would sow them. Although the king failed to naturalize the production of silk in this country, he rendered the tree so fashionable, that there is scarcely an old garden or gentleman's seat throughout the country, which can be traced back to the seventeenth century, in which a Mulberry-tree is not to be found. It was at this time that Shakspeare planted the one in his garden at Stratford-on-Avon, which was known as "Shakspeare's Mulberry-Tree," until it was felled in 1756; and that it was a black Mulberry we learn from Mr. Drake, a native of Stratford, who frequently in his youth ate of its fruit, some branches of which hung over the wall which bounded his father's garden.--Drake's _Shakspeare_, vol. ii., p. 584.

In this country the Black-fruited Mulberry always assumes something of a dwarf or stunted character, spreading into thick arms or branches near the ground, and forming a very large head. The bark is rough and thick, and the leaves cordate, unequally serrated, and very rough. The fruit is large, of a dark purple, very wholesome, and agreeable to the palate. This tree is remarkable for the slowness of its growth, and for being one of the last trees to develope its leaves, though it is one of the first to ripen its fruit. It is also wonderfully tenacious of life: "the roots of one which had lain dormant in the ground for twenty-four years, being said, after the expiration of that time, to have sent up shoots."