THE BEECH. 145 



They describe it as being lofty, furnished with wide- 

 spreading branches, casting a dense shade, loving the hill- 

 side, attaining a great age, and furnished with so smooth 

 a bark that rustics selected it to carve their names on, and 

 even for the reception of their poetical effusions. 1 Virgil 

 states that it was grafted on the Chestnut, and that its 

 wood was converted into bowls, a use which is alluded 

 to by other poets. No other tree with which we are 

 acquainted accords with this description. But this is not 

 all, for Pliny, the Latin naturalist, gives an accurate 

 description of the Fagus, which cannot fail to identify it 

 with our Beech. " Of the various kinds of mast, that of 

 the Fagus is the sweetest, on which Cornelius Alexander 

 says, that some men, who were besieged in the town of 

 Chios, lived for some time. It resembles a nut, and is 

 enclosed in a triangular rind. The leaf is thin and exceed- 

 ingly smooth, shaped like the Poplar, decaying, after it 

 has fallen to the ground, long before any of the other 

 mast-bearing trees. The mast is much eaten by mice, 

 which abound at the season of its ripening; it also entices 

 dormice, and is much sought after by thrushes. Hogs 

 fattened on it are lively, and their flesh is digestible, light, 



probably the tree which that author calls aiyi\(aty (cegilops), and 

 describes as "a mast-bearing tree, furnished with a very straight 

 trunk, very lofty, having a smoother bark than any of the other 

 mast-bearing trees, and growing but sparingly in enclosed country." 

 (THEOPHRASTUS, de Plantis, lib. ii.) The <t>r}y6s of Theophrastus 

 was probably the ^Rsculus of the Romans. 



1 Among the many anecdotes connected with the history of print- 

 ing which have come down to us, that related by Hadrian Junius 

 deserves to be noticed in this place. About the year 1441, Law- 

 rence Koster, a citizen of Haarlem, " walking in a suburban grove, 

 began first to fashion Beech-bark into letters, which being impressed 

 upon paper, reversed in the manner of a seal, produced one verse, 

 then another, as his fancy pleased, to be for copies to the children 

 of his son-in-law." This hint he subsequently improved upon, and 

 finally invented blocks of lead and tin, and printed books. Among 

 his workmen was John Faust, who, having been initiated in the 

 art, although sworn to secrecy, decamped, carrying with him his 

 master's stock in trade, and set up as a printer on his own account 

 at Mayence. I should add that, although many literary men have 

 credited this account, it bears, on close examination, internal evi- 

 dence of being a fabrication, either of Hadrian or his informant. 



H 



