THE OAK. 33 



well-proportioned, tapering trunk, and with symmetrically- 

 arranged branches, and flinging its chequered shade far and 

 near over the verdant sward, is a beautiful object, and 

 irresistibly draws the attention to itself. But it does not 

 carry the mind of the spectator back to past events, it does 

 not talk with us about bygone ages and scenes at which no 

 man now living was present ; and if we think of its future 

 fate, there is so much of uncertainty about that, so much 

 of doubt as to the length of time for which it is destined 

 to retain its position, whether it will be laid low by the 

 tempest, or by the woodman's axe, and, if the latter, to 

 what purposes it may be applied, that the mind can select 

 nothing sufficiently definite to engage itself upon. The 

 tan-yard, the saw-pit, and the baker's oven are decidedly 

 not subjects to dwell upon ; and these, in fact, are the 

 only passages in its history which can be predicted with 

 certainty. But the case is very different with the uncouth 

 monster on whom the destroyer has done all but his utmost. 

 Though but a hollow shell, blasted above, and worm-eaten 

 below, and indebted for its scanty verdure more to ferns 

 and moss than to the feeble relics of life which yet remain 

 in it, it is a monument of the past more eloquent than 

 buildings the most time-hallowed ; or, save one, than 

 books of the most remote antiquity. It is now a living 

 tree, and it was the same thirty generations back. Yes ! 

 a thousand years ago it was a stately tree ; when the 

 present dynasty commenced it was older than the oldest 

 men then alive, and it has lived through all the stirring 

 events which have taken place from that time to this, 

 connecting the names of Stephenson and Tennyson with 

 those of Newton and Milton and Shakespeare, and these 

 with Caxton and Chaucer; and having sprung from an 

 acorn born by a tree which perhaps flourished when our 

 Holy Religion was preached in Palestine by the Saviour, 

 whose coming was to banish from the earth all those bar- 

 barous rites which were ; then being enacted beneath the 

 shade of its branches. 



