IX. 



SYLVAN GIANTS. 



ERXES figures in his- 

 tory as a great war- 

 rior, and not as a lover 

 of trees, -but that he 

 was an admirer of 

 trees is clear from 

 the related incident 

 of the celebrated 

 Phrygian Plane. The 

 story shall be told in 



the delightful English of our beloved Gilpin. 

 Says the author of ' Forest Scenery/ taking 

 the account from Elian : ' One of the most 

 celebrated trees on ancient record was an 

 Oriental Plane, which grew in Phrygia. Its 

 dimensions are not handed down to us ; but, 

 from the following circumstances, we may suppose 

 them to have been very ample. When Xerxes 



