amentifer;e. 163 



have seen a romccly in use externally for rlieumatism on the Continent, known as 

 huile lie marrons. It is somewhat expensive, but is supposed to be very effectual. 



We find frequent allusions to the chestnut tree by the old poets. Virgil often 

 mentions it, and we have Dryden's version of a passage occurring in the second 

 Eclogue before us : — 



" Myself will search our planted grounds at home 

 For downy peaches and the glossy plum, 

 And thrash the chestnuts in the neighbouring grove, 

 Such as my Amaryllis used to love." 



The old English poets frequently allude to the chestnut. Herrick says : — 



" Remember us in cups full crowned, 

 And let our city health go round. 

 Quite through the young maids and the men, 

 To the ninth number, if not ten. 

 Until the fired chestnuts leap 

 For joy to see the fruits ye reap 

 From the plump chalice and the cup 



That temps till it be tossed up." 



• 



Ben Johnson speaks of the " chestnut whilk hath larded many a sconce." Shakes- 

 peare, in "Macbeth," writes of "a sailor's wife with chestnuts on her lap;" and 

 Milton alludes to the custom of roasting chestnuts : — 



" While hisses on rug-hearth the pulpy pear, 

 And black'ning chestnuts start and crackle there." 



Philip tells us that in Catalonia a custom prevails of people going from house to 

 house on All Saints' Eve, believing that every chestnut they eat in a different house 

 will free a soul from purgatory. 



As an ornamental tree in landscape, the chestnut is picturesqu.e and beautiful. It is 

 this tree which graces the landscapes of Salvator Rosa. In the mountains of Calabria, 

 where he painted, it flourished. There he studied it in all its forms, breaking and 

 disposing it in a thousand beautiful shapes, as the exigencies of his composition 

 required. In parks, the chestnut is displayed most to advantage when standing 

 singly, or in scattered groups with the oak. Bose says : — " As an ornamental tree, 

 the chestimt ought to be placed before the oak. Its beautiful leaves, which are never 

 attacked by insects, and which hang on the tree till very late in the autumn, mass 

 better than those of the oak, and give more shade. An old chestnut standing alone 

 produces a superb effect. A group of young chestnuts forms an excellent background 

 to other trees, but a chestnut coppice is insupportably monotonous." In Britain the 

 tree will not attain any height but in sheltered situations, and when the soil is free 

 and of some depth ; but in poor gravelly soil, where its roots will only run along the 

 surface, it will attain a very considerable diameter of trunk, and be of great longevity, 

 though its head may never be larger than a pollard. Of this the chestnut trees in 

 Greenwich Park and Kensington Gardens may be cited as proofs. We must not 

 confound with this tree the horse-chestnut, ^senilis Hippoastranum, which belongs to 

 a veiy different family, and is so well known and so easily recognised by its compound 

 quinate leaves, and its superb pyramids of beautiful white flowers. The only resem- 

 blance between the two trees is in the fruit, the nuts of the Spanish or eatable chestnut 

 being about the same in size and of the same colour (though not so polished) as the 



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