152 THE OAZ. 



this tree, formerly associated with the principal religious 

 ceremonies of that country, is now hardly less sacred in 

 the eyes of the inhabitants from their experience of its 

 shelter and its shade, and their ideas of its usefulness in 

 all the arts. The history of the British Isles is closely 

 interwoven with incidents connected with it, and the 

 poetry of Great Britain has derived from it many a 

 theme of inspiration. 



The Oak surpasses all other trees, not only in actual 

 strength, but also in that outward appearance by which 

 this quality is manifested This expression is owing to 

 the general horizontal tendency of its principal boughs, 

 the great angularity of the unions of its smaller 

 branches, the want of flexibility in its spray, and its 

 great size compared with its height, all manifesting power 

 to resist the wind and the storm. Hence it is called the 

 monarch of trees, surpassing all in the qualities of noble- 

 ness and capacity. It is the embodiment of strength, 

 dignity, and grandeur. The severest hurricane cannot 

 overthrow it, and, by destroying some of its principal 

 branches, leaves it only with more wonderful proof of its 

 resistance. Like a rock in mid-ocean, it becomes in old 

 age a just symbol of fortitude, parting with its limbs one 

 by one, as they are withered by decay or broken by the 

 gale, but still retaining its many-centuried existence, 

 when, like an old patriarch, it has seen all its early 

 companions removed. 



A remarkable habit of the Oak is that of putting forth 

 its lower branches at a wide angle from the central shaft, 

 which rapidly diminishes in size, but does not entirely 

 disappear above the lower junction. No other tree dis- 

 plays more irregularities in its ramification. The beauty 

 of its spray depends on a certain crinkling of the small 

 branches ; yet the Oak, which, on account of these angu- 

 larities, is especially adapted to rude situations, is equally 



