CHAP. LIX. ARALIA‘CEE. HE/DERA. 1005 
roots are formed in the wall, or where shoots can find their way through cracks 
or crevices. In either case, it must tend to fracture, and ultimately to destroy, 
the wall; but so slowly, that we can hardly conceive a case where more injury 
than good would not be done by removing the ivy. Even if the parts of the 
wall were separated from each other by the introduction of the roots or 
shoots, the parts partially separated, would be held together by the ivy. Our 
opinion, therefore, is, that, unless the object is to show the architecture of an 
ivied ruin, its destruction will be accelerated, rather than retarded, by the 
removal of ivy. 
Ivy has been recommended for covering cottages; and not only their walls, 
but even their roofs. We have no doubt it will protect both, wherever it 
cannot insinuate its roots or shoots through the wall or roof: but the roof 
must be steep, otherwise the ivy, when it comes into a flowering, and con- 
sequently shrubby, state, must be clipped, in order to present such an im- 
bricated surface of large leaves as shall effectually throw off the rain. In 
covering cottages with ivy, it must be recollected that it has a tendency, to a 
certain extent, to encourage insects; but, as very few of these live on the ivy, 
_it is not nearly so injurious in this respect as deciduous-leaved climbers, or 
other plants or trees trained against a wall. Pliny says that the ivy will 
break sepulchres of stone, and undermine city walls ; but this, as we have al- 
ready shown, can only be the case where the walls are in a state of incipient 
decay, and contain crevices sufficient to admit the roots or stems of the 
lant. 
Poetical, mythological, and legendary Allusions. The ivy was dedicated by 
the ancients to Bacchus, whose statues are generally found crowned with a 
wreath of its leaves ; and, as the favourite plant of the god of wine, its praises 
have been sung by almost all poets, whether ancient or modern. Many 
reasons are given for the consecration to Bacchus of this plant. Some poets 
say that it was because the ivy has the effect of dissipating the fumes of wine; 
others, because it was once his favourite youth Cissus; and others, because it 
is said that the ivy, if planted in vineyards, will destroy the vines; and that it 
was thus doing an acceptable service to that plant to tear it up, and wreath it 
into chaplets and garlands. The most probable, however, seems to be, that 
the vine is found at Nyssa, the reputed birthplace of Bacchus, and in no other 
part of India. It is related that, when Alexander’s army, after their conquest 
of Babylon, arrived at this mountain, and found it covered with laurel and ivy, 
they were so transported with joy (especially when they recognised the latter 
plant, which is a native of Thebes), that they tore the ivy up by the roots, and, 
twining it round their heads, burst forth into hymns to Bacchus, and prayers 
for their native country. 
Not only Bacchus, who, Pliny tells us, was the first who wore a crown, but 
Silenus, was crowned with ivy; and the golden-berried kind, before the trans- 
formation of Daphne into a laurel, was worn by Apollo, and after him by 
poets. Pope, however, does not seem to allow this; and he gives the plant 
expressly to critics : — 
‘© Immortal Vida, on whose honour’d brow 
The poet’s bays and critic’s ivy grow.” 
The priests of the Greeks presented a wreath of ivy to newly married per- 
sons, as a symbol of the closeness of the tie which ought to bind them 
together ; and Ptolemy Philopater, king of Egypt, ordered all the Jews who 
had abjured their religion to be branded with an ivy leaf. Numerous allusions 
to this plant occur in Homer, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and nearly all the ancient 
and modern poets; but few have given a more just description of it than 
Spenser, in the following lines : — 
** Emongst the rest, the clamb’ring yvie grew, 
Knitting his wanton arms with grasping hold, 
Lest that the poplar happely should rew 
Her brother’s strokes, whose boughs she doth enfold 
With her lythe twigs, till they the top survew, 
And paint with pallid green her buds of gold.” 
