MARCH. 



91 



more than any other tree it now forms a characteristic 

 feature in the scenery of an English landscape. 

 Indeed as Selby remarks, the elm "is seen in its 

 greatest perfection and beauty in the southern and 

 midland parts of England, where it not only forms the 

 avenues of the finest public walks and drives in the 

 vicinity of towns and cities, and enters largely into 

 the proportion of the trees which surround the resi- 

 dences and adorn the parks of our nobility and gentry, 

 but is also the common and prevailing hedgerow tim- 

 ber in many districts, among which we need only 

 particularize the valleys of the Thames and the 

 Severn."* Hence the "Elmy Grange," at once recalls 

 to the eye of memory the old English timbered man- 

 sion, with its carved gables and tall brick turreted 

 chimneys, the moat half filled up and half remaining 

 on the garden side, with steps leading down to it from 

 the terrace walk, and the whole shaded by majestic 

 surrounding elms coeval with the building their foliage 

 envelopes. Indeed many a country residence has some 

 old sylvan guardian of this kind beside its gate, all 

 knotty, and ragged, and hollow, with broken arms, and 

 bleached patches on its huge bole, bare of bark, like 

 an old retainer grown grey in the service, yet resisting 

 age and decay, and retaining his wonted position to 

 the last. 



Almost every place has its favourite old elm, of 

 large dimensions, sanctified by some local name, often 

 on a common, or beside a rustic inn, or fold yard, 

 once the resort of buoyant childhood, now abandoned 

 for ever and yet a hallowed landmark in the tearful 

 vista of memory. Such roadside elms are often pictu- 



* SELBY'S British Forebt Trees, 8vo. p. 105. 



