802 



THE WILLOW. 



SALIX. 



Natural Order AMENTACE.E. 

 Class DICECIA. Order TEIANDBIA. 



By the common consent of mankind trees have in all 

 ages been selected as affording the most appropriate 

 emblems of the passions by which both states and indi- 

 viduals have been swayed, as well as to indicate the 

 various changes in condition to which, from time to time, 

 they have been subjected. I need only mention the Palm, 

 the Olive, the Bay, the Cypress, and I recall at once the 

 ideas of rejoicing, peace, victory, and mourning. The 

 Willow is remarkable among these for having been in 

 different ages emblematic of two directly opposite feel- 

 ings ; at one time being associated with the Palm, at 

 another with the Cypress. The earliest mention of the 

 Willow which occurs in any composition is to be found 

 in the Pentateuch, 1 where the Israelites were directed at 

 the institution of the feast of Tabernacles to " take the 

 boughs of goodly trees, branches of Palm-trees, and the 

 boughs of thick trees, and Willows of the brook, and to 

 rejoice before the Lord their God seven days." 



To wanderers in a dry and barren wilderness the bare 

 mention of a tree bearing the name of the " Willow of 

 the brook" must have come associated with the most 

 pleasurable feelings : and even when the Israelites were 

 settled in a land which was " the joy of all lands," this 

 tree still continued to be emblematical of joyful prosperity 

 The prophet Isaiah, foretelling the glorious restoration 

 of Israel, says, " They shall spring up as among the grass, 

 as Willows by the water-courses." 2 But while the Jews 



1 Lev. xxiii. 40. 2 Isaiah xhv. 4. 



