2416 ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. PART HI. 



Lucan speaks of it as the breeding-place of the eagle ; and Horace hopes 

 that his verses will be as lasting as its wood. 



Among the British poets, Spenser thus describes a cedar : — 



" High on a liill a goodly cedar grew, 



Of wond'rous length and straight proportion. 

 That far abroad her dainty odours threw, 

 'Mongst all the daughters of proud Lebanon." 



Churchill says. 



" The cedar, whose top motes the highest cloud, 

 Whilst his old father Lebanon grows proud 

 Of such a child, and his vast body, laid 

 Out many a mile, enjoys the filial shade." 



Mason describes the cedar as spreading : — 



" Cedars here 



Coeval with the sky.crown'd mountain's self. 

 Spread wide their giant arms." 



Thomson gives a beautiful picture : — 



" On some fair brow 



Let us behold, by breezy summers cool'd. 

 Broad o'er our heads the verdant cedar wave." 



Shakspeare's lines on the fall of Warwick are well known : — 



" Thus vields the cedar to the axe's edge. 



Whose arras gave shelter to the princely eagle. 

 Under whose shade the ramping lion slept, 

 Whose top branch overpeer'd Jove's spreading tree. 

 And kept low shrubs from winter's powerful wind." 



Third Part of Henry VI., act v. so. S. 



Li the last scene of Henry VUI., Cranmer says, speaking of James I., — 



" He shall flourish. 



And, like a mountain cedar, reach his branches 

 To all the plains about him." 



Shakspeare makes several other allusions to the cedar. Drayton calls it 

 " the tufted cedar;" and Fairfax, " the proud cedar." Spenser also calls it 

 " the cedar proud and tall ;" and Sir Philip Sydney terms it " queene of the 

 woods." 



Many allusions to this tree are also found among the modern poets : — 



" On high the cedar 



Stoops, like a monarch to his people bending. 



And casts his sweets around." B.irry Cornwall. 



" Down in a vale, where lucid waters play'd, 

 And mountain cedars stretch'd their downward shade." Montgomery. 



The following lines from Southey allude to the power supposed to be possessed 

 by the cedar of freeing itself from the snow. (Seep. 24 10.) 



" It was a cedar tree 



That woke him from the deadly drowsiness ; 



Its broad round-spreading branches, when they felt 



The snow, rose upward in a point to heaven. 



And, standing in their strength erect. 



Defied the baffled storm." Thalaba. 



Moore says, — 



" Now upon Syria's land of roses 

 Softly the light of eve reposes, 

 Andi like a glory, the broad sun 

 Hangs over sainted Lebanon." Paradise and the Peri. 



" As Lebanon's small mountain flood 

 Is render'd holy by the ranks 

 Of sainted cedars on its banks '. " Lalla Eookh. 



The following verses of Racine are so well known, and so much admired, in 

 France, that we quote them: — 



" J'ai vu I'irapie adore sur la terre : 

 Pareil au cfedre, 11 cachait dans les cieux 



Son front audacieux ; 

 II semblait a son gre gouvenicr le tonnerre, 



Foulait aux pieds ses ennemis vaincus : 

 Je n'ai fait que passer, il n'etait deja plus." 



