The Romance of a Wayside Weed. 79 



upland near the warm valley of the Devonshire Axe ; 

 the white scdum struggles on upon the edge of Mal- 

 vern ; and my hairy wood-spurge here battles hard 

 for life on Claverton Down, close to the steamincr 

 basin of the old Roman Thermae at Bath. 



And so I end where I began. i\Iy sermon has 

 led me far afield ; but, like a good preacher, I have 

 come back to my text. I have only touched lightly 

 upon the simplest and least technical proofs ; but 

 when the whole evidence is put together — as I do not 

 pretend to put it together off-hand, sitting here cross- 

 legged on the edge of Wansdyke — there can be very 

 little reasonable doubt that this is something like the 

 way in which the hairy wood-spurge first found its 

 way to the Prior Park Lane. So I have gathered my 

 little morsel tenderly and carefully, not injuring the 

 little plant more than I can help by my clumsiness ; 

 and I hope all future botanisers will do the same, in 

 order to aid in preserving and handing down to after 

 ages this interesting fragment of old English history, 

 kept green and vital for us all in the tiny blossom of 

 a wavside weed. 



