Wayside Jottings. 



By W. STEYEXSON, F.R.H.S. 



I. — Gains and Losses of the English Language. 



" Geeens." What liave we to do with greens ? We are not vege- 

 tarians, nor do we wish to make use of our columns for the benefit of 

 market gardeners ; then what, the readrr will exclaim, do we mean 

 by introducing such terms into the columns of this Journal ? Our 

 answer is, we claim it as a term connected with trees and woodland 

 scenery, one largely used by the best scholars and the most polished 

 writers of the last century, but one that has slipped out of our sylvan 

 vocabulary, and become a thing of the past during the last seventy 

 years. 



Bailey, in his dictionary, which was a standard work of the English 

 language in the last century, informs us that trees and plants requiring 

 the protection of greenhouses were called " choice greens," and Pope, 

 in the following extracts, makes such frequent use of the term in the 

 sense that we indicate that we have no hesitation in claiming for it a 

 place in connection with sylvan scenery : — 



" A spring there is, whose silver waters show, 

 Clear as a glass, the shining sands below ; 

 A flow'ry lotus spreads its arms above, ' 

 Shades all the banks and seems itself a grove, 

 Eternal greens the mossy margin grace, 

 Watch'd by the sylvan genius of the place." 



Speaking of Melancholy as she sits in the twilight groves, he 

 says :-^ 



" Her gloomy presence saddens all the scene, 

 Shades every flower and darkens every green. 

 Deepens the murmur of the falling floods, 

 And breathes a browner horror on the woods." 



It might be argued that the poet in this case alluded to the green 

 herbage in the same sense that Sir W. Scott does in the following : — 



" Nor wilding green nor woodland flower 

 Arose within that baleful bower," 



but that the term was extended to forest trees we have incontestible 

 proof in the following lines by Pope : — 



" To paint anew the flow'ry sylvan scenes, 

 To crown the forest with immortal greens.'" «• 



