THE BEECH. 57 



the tall pillar, "smooth, except for odd cavities, 

 depressions, and knobs ; but in well-developed indi- 

 viduals, those singular groupings of erect branches 

 which wear the semblance of clustered columns, 

 and by-and-by give out from their summits, grace- 

 fully sweeping arches that seem the ribs of a roof 

 of air. The smoothness of the bark fits the beech, 

 more than any other tree, for the carving of letters 

 and inscriptions, which, though distorted in the 

 course of a few years, and eventually quite lost, by 

 the gradual expansion and decay of the outer portion, 

 are for a while as clear and sharp as if cut in 

 stone. How beautiful and how ancient are the 

 associations of this practice ! " There is a man," 

 exclaims one of Shakspere's immortal characters, 

 " There is a man haunts the forest, that abuses our 

 young trees, carving Rosalind on their barks." 

 Twenty-five centuries before then lived Paris and 

 CEnone the former that famous youth who, bred 

 among old Priam's shepherds, and tending his 

 flocks upon Mount Ida, was suddenly called to 

 adjudge the prize of beauty among the goddesses. 

 Venus persuaded him with the promise of the finest 

 woman in the world to wife, and for the sake of 

 Helen, poor OEnone was forsaken. Till that ill- 

 fated hour, from which dated the overthrow of Troy, 

 and all the incidents and fables embosomed in the 

 choicest poems of antiquity, CEnone and Paris had 

 been playmates and lovers. Gone from her for 



