CHAP. LIX. ARALIA'CE^E. //E'DEKA. 1005 



roots are formed in the wall, or where shoots can find their way through cracks 

 or crevices. In either case, it must tend to fracture, and ultimately to destroy, 

 the wall ; but so slowly, that we can hardly conceive a case where more injury 

 than good would not be done by removing the ivy. Even if the parts of the 

 wall were separated from each other by the introduction of the roots or 

 shoots, the parts partially separated, would be held together by the ivy. Our 

 opinion, therefore, is, that, unless the object is to show the architecture of an 

 ivied ruin, its destruction will be accelerated, rather than retarded, by the 

 removal of ivy. 



Ivy has been recommended for covering cottages ; and not only their walls, 

 but even their roofs. We have no doubt it will protect both, wherever it 

 cannot insinuate its roots or shoots through the wall or roof: but the roof 

 must be steep, otherwise the ivy, when it comes into a flowering, and con- 

 sequently shrubby, state, must be clipped, in order to present such an im- 

 bricated surface of large leaves as shall effectually throw off the rain. In 

 covering cottages with ivy, it must be recollected that it has a tendency, to a 

 certain extent, to encourage insects ; but, as very few of these live on the ivy, 

 it is not nearly so injurious in this respect as deciduous-leaved climbers, or 

 other plants or trees trained against a wall. Pliny says that the ivy will 

 break sepulchres of stone, and undermine city walls ; but this, as we have al- 

 ready shown, can only be the case where the walls are in a state of incipient 

 decay, and contain crevices sufficient to admit the roots or stems of the 

 plant. 



Poetical, mythological, and legendary Allusions. The ivy was dedicated by 

 the ancients to Bacchus, whose statues are generally found crowned with a 

 wreath of its leaves ; and, as the favourite plant of the god of wine, its praises 

 have been sung by almost all poets, whether ancient or modern. Many 

 reasons are given for the consecration to Bacchus of this plant. Some poets 

 say that it was because the ivy has the effect of dissipating the fumes of wine; 

 others, because it was once his favourite youth Cissus ; and others, because it 

 is said that the ivy, if planted in vineyards, will destroy the vines; and that it 

 was thus doing an acceptable service to that plant to tear it up, and wreath it 

 into chaplets and garlands. The most probable, however, seems to be, that 

 the vine is found at Nyssa, the reputed birthplace of Bacchus, and in no other 

 part of India. It is related that, when Alexander's army, after their conquest 

 of Babylon, arrived at this mountain, and found it covered with laurel and ivy, 

 they were so transported with joy (especially when they recognised the latter 

 plant, which is a native of Thebes), that they tore the ivy up by the roots, and, 

 twining it round their heads, burst forth into hymns to Bacchus, and prayers 

 for their native country. 



Not only Bacchus, who, Pliny tells us, was the first who wore a crown, but 

 Silenus, was crowned with ivy; and the golden-berried kind, before the trans- 

 formation of Daphne into a laurel, was worn by Apollo, and after him by 

 poets. Pope, however, does not seem to allow this ; and he gives the plant 

 expressly to critics : 



" Immortal Vida, on whose honour'd brow 

 The poet's bays and critic's ivy grow." 



The priests of the Greeks presented a wreath of ivy to newly married per- 

 sons, as a symbol of the closeness of the tie which ought to bind them 

 together ; and Ptolemy Philopater, king of Egypt, ordered all the Jews who 

 had abjured their religion to be branded with an ivy leaf. Numerous allusions 

 to this plant occur in Homer, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and nearly all the ancient 

 and modern poets ; but few have given a more just description of it than 

 Spenser, in the following lines : 



" Emongst the rest, the clamb'ring yvie grew, 

 Knitting his wanton arms with grasping hold, 

 Lest that the poplar happcly should rew 

 Her brother's strokes, whose boughs she doth enfold 

 With her lythe twigs, till they the top survew. 

 And paint with pallid green her buds of gold." 



