224 On the Campus 



urally treated. These are Shakespeare's favorite trees. 

 The cedar of Shakespeare is the cedar of Lebanon, com- 

 monly planted throughout Europe since the time of the 

 crusades. Shakespeare had probably seen specimens in 

 England. He uses it as the type of all that is great and 

 fine. One author thinks he copies Ezekiel, chapter xxxi. 

 The pine was beside him all the while. He knew the 

 secret of the pine knot, and well described it : 



lt . . . cheeks and disasters 

 Grow in the veins of actions highest reared, 

 As knots, by the conflux of meeting sap, 

 Deflect the sound pine and divert his grain 

 Tortive and errant from his course of growth." 



Troilus and Cressida, i : iii, 5. 



Any one who has ever examined the case, or even one 

 who has handled knotty lumber, has seen the wood fiber 

 run around the persistent base of some dead limb, and 

 can appreciate these lines. Such observer has learned 

 the origin of a knot. 



All these quotations show that Shakespeare used his 

 own eyes and used them well. He saw the real distinc- 

 tions of things, the hoariness on the willow leaf. He 

 found character in the oak as in the king, and beauty in 

 both. In many of his notices of natural objects, how- 

 ever, the poet is not the original observer. He portrays 

 a character by allowing him to quote current opinions, 

 fancies, dreams, for these also were the realities of that 

 day, quite as much sometimes as oaks and forests. There 

 is concerning plants a sort of orthodox mythology, and 

 thousands of years have sometimes contributed to the 



