COMMON MYRTLE-TREE. 315 
which surely implies that it was cultivated in that country before that period. 
Bradley, who wrote a treatise on British husbandry and gardening, states that 
myrtles were introduced by Sir Frances Carew and Sir Walter Raleigh, in 1585. 
When they returned to England, after a residence in Spain, jnst before the inva- 
sion of the armada, one of these myrtles was planted by Sir Francis at Bedding- 
ton. In the environs of London, the broad and narrow-leaved myrtles stand out, 
in dry, warm situations, as bushes, sometimes having the extremities of their 
shoots killed down by frost, but more frequently by the direct influence of the 
sun after a frosty night, accompanied with snow and sleet. Both double and 
single varieties of the common myrtle cover large spaces of a wall in the Horti- 
cultural Society's garden. 
At Cobham Hall, in Kent, England, there are several trees against the house, 
thirty feet high. In the isle of Wight and in Devonshire, the myrtle forms 
hedges to gardens. 
At the Willows, near Swansea, in Glamorganshire, Wales, there were, in 1828, 
two myrtles fifteen feet high, grown in the open ground as standards, the branches 
of the largest of which covered a space of ninety feet in circumference. 
In East Lothian, Scotland, more especially at Biel, the myrtle grows against 
a wall with very little protection. 
In Ireland, in Trinity College botanic garden, at Dublin, all the varieties, 
except the orange-leaved, have stood out against a wall with a southern aspect ; 
and at Youghall, near Cork, there was a plant in the open garden twenty feet 
high, which, in 1835, never had been protected. 
In the neighbourhood of Paris, in France, the myrtle will not stand out against 
a wall, without a good deal more protection than it requires at London ; but in 
the southern states of the American union, it grows in great perfection in the open 
air, without protection, in the severest winters. 
Poetical, Mythological and Legendary Allusions. The name " Myrtus," is 
said to have been taken from that of Myrsine, an Athenian maiden, a favourite 
of Minerva, who, suffering love to overpower her wisdom, was changed into a 
myrtle by her offended mistress, and taken pity on by Venus. Others say that 
Venus, when she first sprang from the bosom of the sea, had a wreath of myrtl' 
on her head. The temples of this goddess were always surrounded by groves ot 
myrtle ; and in Greece, she was adored under the name of Myrtilla. According 
to Pliny, the Romans and Sabines, when they were reconciled, laid down their 
arms under a myrtle-tree, and purified themselves with its boughs. Wreaths of 
myrtle were the symbols of authority worn by the Athenian magistrates. The 
weapons of war of the Greeks were also formed of this tree ; and sprigs of myrtle 
were entwined with the laurel wreaths worn by those conquerors during their 
triumphs, who had gained a victory without blood-shed. The victors in the 
Olympic and other games were also adorned with myrtles. In Rome, two myr- 
tles were placed before the temple of Romulus Quirinus, to represent the plebeian 
and patrician orders, which were predicted to be in the ascendency according to 
the state of the trees. The Roman ladies put the leaves of the myrtle into thpir 
baths, persuaded that the plant of Venus must be favourable to beauty. The 
branches and berries were steeped in wine to give it a flavour; and the fruit was 
used in cookery, as the entire plant was in medicine. The ancient poets made 
the myrtle their favourite theme ; and Virgil represents jF,neas discovering it to 
be the metamorphosed Polydorus. In modern times it has been frequently noticed 
by British poets. Thus, Spencer says in his " Faerie Uuccne," 
"Right in the middest of thai Paradise, 
There Stood a stalely mount, on whose round top 
A gloomy ynive of myrtle I reBs did rise. 
Whose shady houghs sharp steel did never lop, 
Nor wicked beasts llieir lender boughs did crop ; 
44 
