MAPLE TRIBE 151 



often adorns the nosegay of primroses, blue-l)ells, violets, orchises, stitchworts, 

 and celandines, which is gathered from wood and meadow in that delightful 

 season. 



The timber of our picturesque little tree is said to be far superior to that 

 of the beech or sycamore for the purpose of the turner; while the mathema- 

 tical instrument maker often substitutes it for the holly or boxwood. It Avas 

 formerly much employed for making pikes and lances ; but its chief use now 

 is for gun-stocks and musical instruments. Bowls and trenchers were, some 

 centuries since, commonly made of Maple-wood ; thus we find in Milton's 

 " Comus "— 



"For wlio ivould rob a hermit of his weeds, 



His few books, or his beads, or Maple dish. 



Or do his gi-ey hairs any violence ?" 



Delicately wrought bowls were sometimes made of this knurled wood, so 

 thin as to transmit the light. The unfortunate fair Rosamond is said to 

 have drunk her fatal potion from a bowl of this material ; and the beautiful 

 drinking-vessels, so much prized in mediaeval times, were chiefly made of the 

 Maple, and took their name from the Dutch maeser, or the German maszholder, 

 which are the names of the tree in Holland and Germany. These bowls 

 were sometimes wrought of other wood, as the walnut and the ash ; and a 

 very beautiful mazer, formed of the latter, was found a few years since in 

 the deep well in the ruined castle of Merdon, near Hursley, built by Bishop 

 Henry de Blois, A.D. 1138. The ashen wood was at that period thought to 

 be gifted with certain medicinal qualities ; but that the Maple-wood was the 

 ordinary material for mazers, the old poets testify. Spenser gives a striking 

 description of one of these bowls : — 



' ' A mazer ywrought of the Maple warre, 

 "Wherein is enchased many a fayi'e sight 



Of bears and tygers, tliat makcn fiers warre ; 

 And over them spred a goodly wilde vine, 

 Entrailed with a wanton yvy twine. 

 Thereby is a lambe in the wolve's jawes ; 



But see how fast renneth the shepheard swain, 

 To save the innocent from the beaste's pawes, — 



And here with his sheepehooke hath him slain. 

 Tell me, such a cup hast thou ever seene ? 

 Well niought it become any harvest queene !" 



And Beaumont and Fletcher thus allude to these bowls — '• 



"And dance upon the mazer's brim." 



A very beautiful and large mazer, of the time of Richard the Second, is 

 figured in the Arcliceological Journal of 1845, in a paper contributed by 

 Mr. T. Hudson Turner, " On the Usages of Domestic Life in the Middle 

 Ages." The material is apparently of Maple- wood, and the embossed rim of 

 silver gilt bears the legend : — 



"CEii the name of the "(Eitnitc 

 t^illc the kup anb ivinkc to me." 



The writer of this valuable paper remarks — " Our ancestors seem to have 

 l^een greatly attached to their mazers, and to have incurred much cost in 

 enriching them. Quaint legends, in English or Latin, monitory of peace and 



