100 ESSAYS. 
Mr. Webb. Supposing them to have been only forty or fifty 
years old at the occurrence of the event to which they owe 
their celebrity, — surely a reasonable supposition, as they 
were then large trees, according to the legend, — they have 
now reached the age of about four hundred years. They are 
probably much older than this. 
But these and all other Cypresses known in Europe are 
striplings in comparison with the tree at Somma, in Lom- 
bardy, which Loudon has figured in his Arboretum (p. 2470), 
from an original drawing furnished by Signor Manetti of 
Monza. The tree is greatly reverenced by the inhabitants 
of that part of Lombardy, who have a tradition that it was 
planted in the year of our Saviour’s birth. Even Napoleon 
is said to have treated it with some deference, and to have 
deviated from a direct line to avoid injuring it, when laying 
down the plan for the great road over the Simplon. Its 
trunk was twenty feet in girth, according to the Abbé Be- 
leze’s measurement, in 1832, or twenty-three feet at the height 
of a foot from the ground, as Signor Manetti states. Since 
the Cypress only attains the circumference of fourteen or fif- 
teen feet in four hundred years or more, and after that must 
increase with extreme slowness, we may, perhaps, place some 
credit in the popular tradition respecting the age of this tree, 
or in the testimony of the Abbé Beléze, who informed Mr. 
Loudon that his brother assured him, that there is an ancient 
chronicle extant at Milan, which proves this tree to have 
been in existence in the time of Julius Cesar ! 
To the same class, also, belongs the goodly Cedar of Leba- 
non (Cedrus Libani), from which the sacred writers have 
derived so many forcible and noble images. It is generally 
employed as an emblem of perennial vigor and longevity. 
The most plausible derivation of the name is from the Arabic 
“kedroum” or “kedre,” signifying “ power”; and the most 
characteristic description of the tree, with its widespread hori- 
zontal branches and close-woven leafy canopy, is that given 
by the prophet Ezekiel, where it is assumed as a type of the 
grandeur and strength of the Assyrian empire. 
“ Behold, the Assyrian was a Cedar in Lebanon, with fair 
