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A huge Oak, dry and dead 

 Still clad with reliques of its trophies old, 

 Lifting to heaven its aged, hoary head 

 With wreathed roots, and naked arms, 

 And trunk all rotten and unsound. 



SPENSER. 



IT is an interesting fact that the morning after 

 the king of Prussia arrived at Windsor Castle, in 

 order to be present at the christening of the 

 Prince of Wales, the whole of His Majesty's 

 suite, including the celebrated Baron Humboldt, 

 enquired their way to Herne's Oak. This was 

 the first object of their attention and curiosity, 

 and probably of their veneration. The splendours 

 of the castle, its pictures, the noble scenery sur- 

 rounding it, and the many historical facts con- 

 nected with it, were objects of inferior interest, 

 compared to a single withered, time-destroyed 

 tree, yet rich with recollections of the genius of 

 our immortal Shakspeare. On arriving at the 

 sacred tree, it was gazed at in silence, but each 

 of the party gathered a leaf from the ivy which 

 is now clinging to the decaying trunk, as a relic 

 which they intended to carry back to their own 

 country, to be shewn there as one of no common 



