MAPLE TREE. 243 



Shed drops, if he be so unkind 

 To raze it with his hand." 



W. BK.UVM -. 



Sannazaro celebrates its shade : 



" Non trovo tra gli afFanni altro ricovero, 

 Che di sedermi solo il pie d'un acero, 

 D'un faggio, d'un abete, over d'uno sovero, 

 Che pensando a colei, che '1 cor m'ha lacero !" 



Egloga prima, dell' Arcadia. 



" I find no other solace in my griefs, than to sit alone at the foot 

 of a maple, a beech, a fir, or a cork-tree, thinking of her who rends 

 my heart." 



Massinger says, 



Here a sure shade 



Of barren sycamores, which the all-seeing sun 

 Could not pierce through." 



Duke of Florence, act iv. s. ii. 



Sir Philip Sidney gives it a place in his Arcadia : 



" Neare whereunto overtaking her, and sitting downe together 

 amouge the sweet flowers, whereof that place was very plentifull, 

 under the pleasant shade of a broad-leaved sycamor, they re- 

 counted one to another their strange pilgrimage of passions, omitting 

 nothing which open-hearted friendship is wont to lay forth, where 

 there is cause to communicate both joyes and sorrowes." 



The largeness of its leaf is one of the chief beauties of 

 this fine tree ; and Fairfax chooses this epithet for it, in 

 the list of trees in the third book of his Tasso : 



" The shooter yew, the broad-leaved sycamore, 

 The barren platane, and the wallnut sound." 



* On the death of his friend Mr. T. Man wood, vol. iii. p. 66. 



R 2 



