284 SYLVAN SKETCHES. 



His own delightful genius ever feigned, 



Illustrating the vales of Arcady 



With courteous courage, and with loyal loves. 



Upon his natal day the acorn here 



Was planted ; it grew up a stately Oak, 



And in the beauty of its strength it stood 



And flourished, when his perishable part 



Had mouldered dust to dust. That stately Oak 



Itself hath mouldered now, but Sidney's name 



Endureth in his own immortal works." 



This tree was frequently called the Bare Oak, by the 

 people of the neighbourhood, from a resemblance it was 

 supposed to bear to the Oak which gave name to the 

 county of Berkshire. Tradition says that when the 

 tenants went to the Park-gates, as it was their custom to 

 do, to meet the Earls of Leicester when they visited that 

 castle, they used to adorn their hats with boughs from 

 this tree. Within the hollow of its trunk, Avas a seat 

 which contained five or six persons with ease and conve- 

 nience. 



The Oak at Boscobel which sheltered Charles the 

 Second after the battle of Worcester, was in great repute 

 in the last century ; and many trees were raised from its 

 acorns. The king visiting the spot some time after, took 

 some of the acorns away, which he set in St. James's 

 Park, and used to tend and watch their growth himself. 

 It is said that one of those trees was removed from thence 

 at the building of Marlborough House. It is still cus- 

 tomary, on the 29th of May, the Restoration of Charles 

 the Second, for the common people to wear Oak leaves 

 or Oak apples in their hats ; some adorn them with leaf- 

 gold ; but the custom is gradually declining. 



" I have been told,' 1 says Evelyn, " that there was an 

 intention to institute an Order of the Royal Oak ; and 



