THE OAK. 267 
of the trunk, surmounted by ponderous horizontal limbs, 
become conspicuous ; and in winter, the gnarled bifurcations, 
firmly built together, display an elegance in the twistings of 
the numerous branchlets never exhibited by any other tree. 
In summer, while the ramifications are less visible, the glossy 
foliage, which, in a good specimen, generally towers into 
galleries or tiers of light and shade, invests the whole object 
with grandeur. From the most remote antiquity, the oak, 
together with the cedar, has possessed a celebrity among vege- 
table productions. On occasions of festivity, when branches 
of trees were presented to the gods and goddesses of heathen 
mythology, the boughs of the oak were offered to Jupiter. 
Most of the counties in England possess some remarkable 
trees of this species, and generally they are “full of story, 
and haunted by the recollections of the great spirits of past 
ages.” In Norfolk stands the celebrated Winfarthing Oak, 
for the most part a ruin, but still producing foliage and acorns. 
Attached to the tree is a brass plate giving its dimensions 
thus :—“ This oak, in circumference at the extremity of the 
roots, is seventy feet; in the middle, forty feet: 1820.” It 
is said to have been called “The Old Oak” in the time of 
William the Conqueror, and its age is believed to be 1500 
years. At Bixley Park, the seat of the Earl of Rosebery, in 
the county last named, is the Bixley Oak, seventeen feet in 
circumference at five feet from the ground. It is calculated 
to contain twelve loads of timber, and during the war £120 
was repeatedly offered for it for the use of the navy. In the 
same county, the great oak at Thorpemarket is one of the 
finest trees in England, and in full vigour. At a foot from 
the ground its girth is twenty-two feet; its trunk is forty- 
two feet long, and the tree is seventy feet high. 
“ The King Oak,” at Windsor Forest, is said to have been a 
favourite tree of William the Conqueror; it measures twenty- 
six feet in circumference at three feet from the ground. It is 
the largest and oldest in Windsor Forest, and has stood up- 
wards of 1000 years. “The Majesty Oak,” at Fredville, in 
Kent, at eight feet from the ground, is upwards of twenty-eight 
