who besmeared with blood a veil which the virgin dropped in her 

 flight. Soon afterwards Pyramus reached the spot, and finding 

 the bloody veil, concluded that Thisbe had been torn to pieces. 

 Overcome with grief, he stabbed himself with his sword ; and 

 Thisbe, shortly returning, and beholding her lover in his death 

 throes, threw herself upon the fatal weapon. With her last breath 

 she prayed that her ashes should be mingled with her lover's in one 

 urn, and that the fruit of the white Mulberry-tree, under which the 

 tragedy occurred, should bear witness of their constancy by ever 

 after assuming the colour of their blood. 



" The prayer which dying Thisbe had preferred 



Both gods and parents with compassion heard. 



The whiteness of the Mulberry soon fled, 



And ripening, saddened in a dusky red ; 



While both their parents their lost children mourn, 



And mix their ashes in one golden urn." — Eusden. 



Lord Bacon tells us that in Calabria Manna falls upon the leaves 

 of Mulberry-trees during the night, from whence it is afterwards 

 coUecfted. Pliny called the Mulberry the wisest of trees, be- 

 cause it is late in unfolding its leaves, and thus escapes the 

 dangerous frosts of early spring. To this day, in Gloucestershire, 

 the country folks have a saying that after the Mulberry-tree has 



shown its green leaves there will be no more frost. At Gioiosa, 



in Sicily, on the day of St. Nicholas that saint is believed to bless 

 the sea and the land, and the populace sever a branch from a 

 Mulberry-tree and preserve it for one year as a branch of good 



augury. In Germany, at Iserlohn, the mothers, to deter the 



children from eating the Mulberries, sing to them that the Devil 



requires them for the purpose of blacking his boots. According 



to Gerarde, " Hegesander, in Athenams, affirmeth that the Mulberry- 

 tree in his time did not bring forth fruit in twenty yeares together, 

 and that so great a plague of the gout then raigned, and raged so 

 generally, as not onely men, but boies, wenches, eunuches, and 



women were troubled with that disease." A Mulberry-tree, 



planted by Milton in the garden of Christ's College, Cambridge, has 

 been reverentially preserved by successive college gardeners. The 

 Mulberry planted by Shakspeare in Stratford-on-Avon was reck- 

 lessly cut down in 1759; but ten years later, when the freedom of 

 the town was presented to Garrick, the document was enclosed in 

 a casket made from the wood of the tree. A cup was also wrought 

 from it, and at the Shakspeare Jubilee, Garrick, holding this cup 

 aloft, sang the following lines composed by himself: — 



" Behold this fair goblet, 'twas carved from the tree 

 Which, O my sweet Shakspeare, was planted by thee ; 

 As a relic I kiss it, and bow at the shrine ; 

 What comes from thy hand must be ever divine! 



All shall yield to the Mulberry-tree ; 



Bend to the blest Mulberry; 



Matchless was he who planted thee ; 



And thou, like him, immortal shall be." 



