42 THE ELM. 



nature had left with so little glow of ornament the most exquisite beauty 

 that art could superadd. For nothing can be more charming than a 

 tree twined over and festooned with the many-tendrilled vine, every leaf 

 a model of elegance in form, and every bunch the beau-ideal of a 

 glorious fruit. Mid all the varied and graceful uses to which the foliage 

 of trees has been applied in Art, the palm-leaf to form the capital of 

 the Egyptian pillar, ivy to help in the stone foliage of the Gothic 

 cathedral, none perhaps have been more constant, as none have been 

 more popular, than the use of the vine- trail. "Vignettes" are so called 

 because all such little pictures were at one time surrounded by an 

 engraved vine-wreath, in classical language called viticula. The selec- 

 tion of the elm for the purpose above-mentioned gives occasion to very 



Fruit of Elm-tree. 



frequent allusion to the practice by the ancient poets, as by Virgil over 

 and over again in the Georgics and the Pastorals. It would seem that 

 in those days, as in the present, lovers forgot their occupations while 

 thinking of the beloved, for thus does Corydon chide himself when he 

 wakes to the consciousness that his appeals are vain : 



Ah, Corydon ! Corydon, qua te dementia cepit ? 

 Semiputata tibi frondos& vitis in ulmo est. 



"Ah, Corydon! Corydon, what love-fever hath enslaved thee ? Half- 

 pruned is thy vine that mantles in the leafy elm ! " Like a wise man, 

 he decides to resume his legitimate occupations*, "to weave, of osiers 

 and pliant rushes, such implements as his work requires : if this Alexis 

 disdains thee, thou shalt yet find another." 



All the preceding remarks apply to the noble tree* popularly known 

 as the elm, and by botanists called the Small-leaved elm and the London 

 elm, and classically Ulmus campestris. It is this one also which, in the 

 south of England, has given its name to one or two " Elmtons" or 



