136 CHAPTERS ON BRITISH BOTANY. [^tty, 



corded tliafc our ancestors^ before they discovered corn^ i.e. before 

 the times of Ceres (when did she live?), ate acorns instead of 

 brown bread, and drank of the waters of the clear spring or of 

 the " brook that bubbled }Jj." But it is more probable that our 

 wise forefathers kept large herds of swine which fed on acorns. 

 A swineherd in those days was an honourable post. Bladud, a 

 king^s son, was his father's swineherd when he discovered the 

 curative qualities of the waters of Bath. He learned this from 

 the scurfy pigs that delighted to wallow in the tepid springs be- 

 cause they felt the benefit of this hydropathic treatment. The 

 Jews were forbidden by their law to eat pork ; and it is not to 

 be conceived that so thrifty a people would have extended the 

 cultivation of an Oak which yielded food only for swine. Again, 

 it is not credible that the aboriginal Britons, who kept hogs, did 

 not also eat them. And hence may have originated the tradi- 

 tion that our ancestors lived on acorns, although the truth was 

 they ate the animals that had been fattened on the fruit of the 

 Oak. 



There might, even in those remote times, when the poor-laws 

 were not invented, have been some idle, thriftless vagabonds, who 

 were, like the prodigal in the parable, fain to eat pigs' meat. 

 But that oak- or beech-mast was ever the common diet of re- 

 spectable people is not to be credited unless founded on better 

 authority than poetic fables. 



It is not yet determined whether or not any of our common 

 forest-trees are also natives of the mountains and vales of Judsea. 

 Some say that they are, and others that they are not. 



That our common Oak may once have grown on the hills of 

 Bashan is not very improbable ; and Hasselquist enumerates our 

 Scotch Pine, Pinus sylvestris, as one of the trees of Lebanon. 



The funereal Cypress, well known in our cemeteries and some- 

 times on our lawns, is called the Gopher-wood of the Bible, of 

 which the Ark was made. The Acacia arabica, or Gum-Arabic- 

 tree, is supposed by some to have been the Shittim-wood of Scrip- 

 ture, of which the Tabernacle was constructed. These however 

 are not British trees, but they are not altogether unknown as cul- 

 tivated, ornamental objects. 



Our common Ash-tree is a native of the East. The prophet 

 Isaiah relates that the deluded people " planted this tree, and the 

 rain nourished it ; part of it was used for fuel, part was fashioned 



