THE BEECH. 



THE BEECH {Fagus sylvatica). — Prosperity. 



Every school-boy must know the opening lines of the 

 first Eclogue of Virgil's Bucolics, wherein Melibceus, seeing 

 Tityrus lying at ease under a Beech-tree, thus accosts him : — 



" Tityre, tu patulas recubans sub tegmine fagi 

 Silvestrem tenui musam meditaris avena ; " 



which is as if he had said in simple English, " O Tityrus, 

 thou, reclining under the shade of a wide-spreading Beech- 

 tree, rehearsest a sylvan song upon the slender pipe ; " 

 apparently envying the rustic owner of the woolly flock he 

 tends ; thinking how happy must be the man, who, pros- 

 perity favouring, can thus enjoy at will the very pure air of 

 the open fields, shaded from the mid-day sun by the spread- 

 ing foliage of the Beech-tree. 



Not any other of our trees forms so ample a roof, and if 

 you seek shelter from a pelting shower, or a shade from the 

 scorching sun, you will find it best 



" Beneath the shade which Beechen boughs diffuse." 



This marked feature in the Beech has seldom passed unnoticed 

 by the poet who has named it in his verse. Gray, in his Elegy, 

 combines it in the mind of village swains with the memory of 

 some departed patriarch : — 



" There at the foot of yonder nodding Beech, 

 That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, 

 His Hstless length at noontide would he stretch. 

 And pore upon the brook that bubbles by." 

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