BEECH -TREE. Ill 



selves to the sternest localities, must have occasioned 

 the wood to be selected for purposes of festivity. "The 

 beechen bowl, the beechen bowl," has been eulogized by 

 many a rustic poet, both in ancient and modern times. 

 Of old, the vasa vmdemiatoria and corbes messoria were 

 made with the rind ; at the present day you may see young 

 children on the common that skirts the ravine, gathering 

 wild strawberries into little pottles wrought in like manner. 

 All lovers of woodland scenery maintain, that no tree 

 is more beautiful when standing in parks and pleasure- 

 grounds, with numerous and spreading branches, either 

 aspiring in airy lightness above the general mass, or else 

 gracefully feathering to the ground.. But in woods, as 

 already noticed, our brotherhood grow clear of branches 

 to a great height, and hence, as sang the poet, 



There oft the muse, what most delights her, sees, 

 Long living galleries of aged trees, 

 Bold sons of earth, that lift their arms so high, 

 As if once more they would invade the sky. 



