272 OTTB, COMMON FETJITS. 



to be the best accompaniment for the decanter would 

 even then be rivalled, if not surpassed, by those of one 

 other; for "wine and Walnuts" are as harmoniously 

 wedded as ever was "music to sweet song." 



"The fruit which we a nut, the gods an acorn call; 

 Jove's acorn," 



says Cowley, for the generic name of the Walnut, Jug- 

 lans has been supposed to mean Jove's glans, or acorn ; 

 the Greeks, too, dignified it with the name of Basilicon, 

 or the Royal Nut ; while the learned Dr. Sickler has even 

 tried to prove that the golden apples of the Hesperides 

 were no other than this same Walnut. This fruit, says 

 he, in his Gesckichte der Olst-cultur, was a gift brought 

 by the Earth to Juno, on the occasion of her marriage 

 with Jupiter, and by her order planted in the garden of 

 the gods, not far from Mount Atlas, a place which seems 

 to have been to the Greek poets something like what 

 Paradise was to the Hebrews. The daughters of King 

 Atlas, called collectively the Hesperides, were appointed 

 to take charge of it ; but, seeing the abundance of the 

 fruit, they neglected to cultivate it, till Nature, thus left 

 to herself, became less productive, whereon they were 

 punished for their unfaithfulness by the angry divinities 

 sending a hundred-headed dragon to drive them out of 

 this Eden, and prevent them from re-entering it. At last, 

 however, Hercules came to the garden, killed the dragon, 

 and triumphantly bore away the golden apples. This 

 fable may be translated thus: viz., that one of the de- 

 scendants of the Hesperidean exiles, who had settled in 

 Greece, but still preserved a tradition of the fruitful land 

 whence he had emigrated, undertook to seek this happy 

 soil, and bring away some of its delicious growth to their 

 adopted country. After long travel he discovered the 

 place he sought. The convulsion of the earth, typified 

 by the dragon, which had driven away the original inha- 

 bitants, was either over, or else the obstacle was overcome 

 by his daring, and the fruit was successfully transplanted. 

 We find too that this hero travelled towards the west, 

 and returned eastward to his native land. But what was 

 the fruit thus obtained ? Various indeed have been the 



