BEECH 113- 



hands ^ is read upon their bark, testimonies of my just 

 claim upon your affection." The appeal is in vain, and the 

 flames of burning Troy cast a lurid light on the story. 



Shakespeare does not absolutely tell us in ^As you Like 

 It that the trees were beech, but the speech of Jaques, 

 " I pray you, mar no more trees with writing love-songs 

 on their barks," indicates that these effusions were of 

 considerable length, and we may well assume that so 

 experienced a hand would appreciate the special merits 

 of the beech over all other trees for his purpose. 



"The quaint old author of Adam in Eden tells us that 

 the Beech Tree delighteth to grow in some places 

 more than in other : for, as in the Chiltern County, no 

 word is more familiar ; so in others not far from it, a 

 Beech Tree is a great rarity, as in Oxfordshire, where 

 there is one growing between Oxford and Banbury, which 

 is so famous that it is noted over all the County, and 

 called the Beechen Tree, there being scarcely a Traveller 

 that goes by that way but takes special notice of it, yea, 

 formerly many went to it (though it be somewhat out of 

 the way), to cut their names upon its smooth bark, so 

 that now it is so full of letters that there is hardly any 

 space left." 



The flowers of the beech are monoecious, the stamen- 

 bearing flowers being in globose catkins of about a dozen 



' The tending of sheep would appear to be a calm pursuit lending itself 

 very readily to thoughts of the absent fair one. We quote another 

 illustration : 



But oft, when vnderneathe the greene wood shade, 

 Her flocks lay hid from Phoebus scorching raies, 

 Vnto her knight she songs and sonnets made, 

 And them engrau'd in barke and beeche and bales. 



Fairfax. — Godfrey of Boulogne. Book VII., St. 19. 



