The old Memorial tree is down ; 



But its stirring legend still lives on : 

 A tale of grief and withering woe, 



Of tears that ceased long ago. M. R. 



THE noble Oak of Ellerslie sheltered the birth-place of 

 Wallace. Centuries have passed since then, and now it 

 stands in the centre of a small common, time-worn and 

 reft of all its greatness, a magnificent ruin ; although, 

 within the memory of man, its ample branches extended 

 over a Scotch acre of ground. Wallace, and the children 

 of the village, used to play beneath its shelter : they 

 would gather acorns for cups and balls, and rest on the 

 green sward when they were hot and weary. 



A poet, perhaps, would tell you that the patriarchal 

 tree loved to look down on the young " wee things," whose 

 remotest ancestors precursors, it may be, of a thousand 

 generations, to the period concerning which we speak 

 had dwelt beside it ; that it liked to screen them from the 

 noonday heat ; and that, when a sudden shower, driving 

 furiously from off the hills, made the fondlings haste 

 beneath its branches, it kept off the heavy rain-drops that 

 they might not harm the merry crowd. Certain it is that 



