THE LIME. 51 



Next, as to the Flowers. These, in the linden, differ materially 

 from those of trees that bear catkins, and correspond closely with such 

 blossoms as those of the apple and pear, wanting only in gaiety of tint. 

 A glorious spectacle is it to go beneath a linden in full flower, and 

 look up. This is the only way in which its amazing wealth of bloom 

 can be discovered and understood, for such is the disposition of the 

 foliage and of the flower-peduncles, that at a little distance, the tree 

 seems to be no more than prettily dappled or variegated ; viewed, on 

 the other hand, from below, it is a very heaven of fragrant honey-cups. 

 That favoured characteristic of the violet which has made this flower, 

 with the poets, the emblem of modesty, is not more marked in the little 

 hedge-row blossom than in the deep-hearted and lady-like linden, which 

 surpasses, too, all trees that grow in England, in benevolence to the 

 bees. Who, in regard to this, does not remember the good old (Ebalian 

 in Virgil ? "Here planting among the shrubs, white lilies, vervain, 

 and esculent poppies, he equalled, in his contented mind, the wealth of 

 kings. The first was he to pluck the rose of spring, and the first to 

 gather the fruits of autumn ; and even when sad winter split the rocks 

 with frost, and bridled the current of the streams with ice, yes, in that 

 very season was he cropping the locks of the soft acanthus.-- Lindens 

 had he, and pines, in great abundance ; he, therefore, was the first to 

 abound with prolific bees, and to strain the frothy honey from the well- 

 pressed combs, "f 



Our English poets freely refer to the honey of the lime, especially 

 the class of writers represented in Mrs. Hemans and L.E.L. Cowper 

 adverts to it 



The lime at dewy eve 

 Diffusing odours. 



And though not in relation to this particular circumstance, we have the 

 tree mentioned also by Lord Byron, in " Lara." Prose writers like- 

 wise not unfrequently introduce the lime, as much for this reason, no 

 doubt, as for any other, when they would suggest ideas of graceful 

 form and of a delicately- scented atmosphere ; Fenelon, for example, in 

 his description of the enchanted island of Calypso. To a mind of 



* Several plants, with the ancients, bore the name of Acanthus. That one to 

 which the name is here applied, appears to have heen that beautiful and curious 

 variety of the common holly which, instead of bearing bracelets of scarlet berries, 

 produces yellow ones. That it was certainly a berried and evergreen shrub, appears 

 from the allusions in Eclogue, iv. J20 ; and in Georgic ii. 119. 



+ Georgic iv. 131 141. See also iv. 183, where the bees "feed on the glowing 

 crocus and the luscious lime." 



