SYLVAN SKETCHES. 



It seem'd a hermit's cell, 



Yet void of hour-glass, skull, and maple-dish." 



MASON. 



Dryden introduces it in a larger form into a house- 

 wife^ cottage : 



" Her parlour window stuck with herbs around 

 Of savory smell, and rushes strew'd the ground : 

 A maple-dresser in her hall she had, 

 On which full many a slender meal she made." 



The old lady was probably little aware, that she was 

 in possession of property so valuable ; and that the tree 

 which furnished her homely dresser had been sought far 

 and wide, and bought and sold at enormous prices by 

 men of rank and power. 



Thunberg speaks of the Maples of Japan as extremely 

 beautiful. " For beauty," says he, " nothing can exceed 

 the Maples indigenous of this country." And Dr. Clarke, 

 travelling in a climate totally opposite to that of Japan 

 on the borders of Lapland, and even on a mountain in 

 that cold climate, says, " In our way up, we were asto- 

 nished by the beauty and magnitude of the trees which 

 we passed. Here we observed what is vulgarly called 

 sycamore in our country, Acer Piatanoides, spreading its 

 luxuriant foliage among the proudest natives of the 

 place *." 



Browne mentions the sycamore as a rural tablet : 



" Ye shady siccamours ! when any swaine, 

 To carve his name upon your rind 

 Doth come, where his doth stand, 



* Clarke's Travels, vol. iii. p. 219. 



