10 Some Enquiry concerning 



mere admirers of vegetation, look up for information in the study of their fa- 

 vourite objects. It must, however, be acknowledged that they not unfre- 

 quently look in vain ; and an enquiry at the hands of the professors of the 

 science sometimes induces an impression that the frequent, and apparently capri- 

 cious, alterations in the names of plants is productive of much perplexity, and 

 that the classical history of trees has been thrown into confusion by a misap- 

 plication of their original appellations. Under such impressions this attempt 

 to extricate the Roman Fagus, our modern beech tree, from some difficulties 

 has been undertaken, engaging in no botanical discussion, but merely pursuing 

 an investigation founded upon the historical accounts we have received of the 

 tree. 



It is not a little remarkable, that two authors so familiar to us, and so free 

 from obscurities, as Caesar and Virgil, should each of them contain a passage 

 in which the word Fagus occurs, and by its presence occasions a great deal of 

 embarrassment among commentators. Caesar (JB. G., v. 12.) asserts that the 

 Fagus does not grow in Britain; and Virgil (Georg., ii. 71.), in describing 

 the wonders of the art of grafting, informs us, by that process the Castaneae 

 were made to produce Fagos. It is just as difficult to imagine that the Beech 

 (which composes so much of the woodlands of England, and in Saxon times 

 conferred a name upon the whole county of Buckingham) could ever have 

 been otherwise than indigenous to Britain, as it is to suppose that a philosophic 

 poet, like Virgil, could ever propose to dignify by honourable notice a practice 

 so completely at variance with common sense as that of grafting the beech 

 upon the sweet chestnut. Abandoning, therefore, as hopeless, all the various 

 attempts to force such a meaning from the words, I shall at once endeavour to 

 ascertain whether the Fagus of Caesar and Virgil really does signify the tree we 

 now know by the name of Beech. The Italian appellation of the Beech is 

 unquestionably Faggio, and we cannot hesitate to believe that Faggio is derived 

 from the Latin Fagus : neither is it to be denied that the Fagus of the naturalist 

 Pliny clearly means the Beech ; his description of its mast is too precise and 

 explicit to admit of any mistake. "Fagi glans," he says (N.H., xvi. 7.),"nucleis 

 similis, tnangula cute includitur" Pliny, however, wrote upwards of a century 

 subsequent to the time of Caesar and Virgil j and it is, therefore, to anterior 

 authors that we must refer, if, in the suspicion that the signification of Fagus 

 had undergone some change, we attempt to explore the original meaning of 

 the word. 



Without offering any disturbance to the Celtic reveries of Whitaker (Hist, 

 of Manchester, i. 312.), most people will be satisfied with the fact, that the Latin 

 Fagus is evidently a derivative from the Greek Phegos; and Phegos as obvi- 

 ously originates cnvb tov (payeTv, from the circumstance of the fruit of the 

 tree having constituted an article of human food. Roman literature, before 

 the days of Caesar and Virgil, had made but little progress; and, particularly in 

 points of natural history, the Romans followed implicitly the paths pointed 

 out by their masters, the Greeks : with the term Fagus, therefore, the primary 

 signification of the word must have been introduced from the Greek writers ; 

 and, if we hope to discover it, we must have recourse to them for assistance. 

 Theophrastus, in this matter, naturally stands forward as our principal guide ; 

 and, although his text has suffered much from vitiations, and his phraseology 

 is abstruse and technical, a great deal may, I think, be obtained from him to- 

 wards throwing light upon the subject. 



The Beech is described by Theophrastus (Hist. Plant., iii. 9.) under the name 

 of b%vt) *, one point at least admitted without controversy; but the Phegos 



* The modern Romaic appellation is not very dissimilar. See Fauriel's 

 Chants Populaires de la Grece Moderne. 



Td ttevici atcovio Kal (3povTovv, Kal Taig 6%eialg icai rplZovv. 



" I rose at early morning, two hours before 't was day, 

 I wash'd me in the streamlet to drive my sleep away ; 



