of te $nfy (Common. 197 



which increases daily, as first one musician and then 

 another, conies in aid. But this noble tree is to the 

 eye what music is to the ear. Look at the stately stem, 

 how smooth and glossy ; time has not yet furrowed it, 

 nor has the pendent lichen and gray moss rooted them- 

 selves in its rough fissures. No records of human crime, 

 nor human care are chronicled upon its bark, no ruin 

 stands near on which the woes of ages have gathered and 

 brood heavy ; no associations connected with the beautiful 

 tree, of midnight murders and broken hearts, the tears of 

 orphans and the prayers of oppressed ones, for patience or 

 for redress. Neither is there any trace upon the common, 

 that a circle of unhewn stones ever stood within its pre- 

 cincts, where unhallowed rites were practised, and midnight 

 incantations uttered ; nor even that the grave of Briton 

 or of Gaul, of Roman or of Saxon, were made there, 

 for the turf is smooth as velvet. 



Stately stands the tree, the tree beloved of all. The 

 oak is a majestic tree, the chesnut one of the most 

 umbrageous of forest trees, the elm rises like a pyramid 

 of verdure, the ash has its drooping branches, the 

 maple is celebrated for its light and quivering foliage, but 

 the beech is the poets' tree, the lovers' tree. Have you 

 not heard that young men often haunt the forest, and 

 disfigure the even and silvery bark of beech-trees, 

 by making them the depositors of the names of their 

 beloved ones ? " The bark," say they, " conveys a happy 

 emblem," and while thus employed they please them- 



