17.it ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. PART III. 



the cottage of Philemon, who was afterwards changed into an oak tree, they 

 were treated with the greatest kindness. Philemon was a poor old man, who 

 lived with his v\ite Baucis in Phrygia, in a miserable cottage, which Jupiter, to 

 row aril his hospitality, changed into a magnificent temple, of which he made 

 the old couple priest and priestess, granting them the only request they made 

 to him ; vis. to be permitted to die together. Accordingly, when both were 

 grown BO old as to wish for death, Jove turned Baucis into a lime tree, and 

 Philemon into an oak ; the two trees entwining their branches, and shading 

 for more than a century the magnificent portal of the Phrygian temple. The 

 civic crown of the Romans was formed of oak ; and it was granted for eminent 

 civil services rendered to the state, the greatest of which was considered to be 

 the saving oi' the life of a Roman citizen. Scipio Africanns, however, when 

 this crown was offered to him for saving the life of his father at the battle of 

 Trebia, nobly refused it, on the ground that such an action carried with it its 

 own reward. Lncan alludes to this custom in his Pharsalia. 



" Straight Lelius from amidst the rest stood forth, 

 An old centurion of distinguish M worth : 

 An oaken wreath his hardy temples bore, 

 Mark of a citizen preserved he wore." Rowe's Lucan, book i. 



Shakspeare, when making Cominius describe the merits of Coriolanus, men- 

 tions this crown, as having been won by that hero. 



" At sixteen years, 



When Tarquin made a head from Rome, he fought 



Beyond the mark of others : our then dictator, 



Whom with all praise I point at, saw him fight, 



When with his Amazonian chin he drove 



The bristled lips before him : he bestrid 



An o'erpress'd Roman, and i' the consul's view 



Slew three opposcrs : Tarquin'a self he met, 



And struck him on his knee : in that day's feats, 



When he might act the woman in the scene, 



He proved best man i'thc field, and for his meed 



Was brow-bound with the oak." Coriolanus, act. ii. scene 2. 



Acorns having been the common food of man till Ceres introduced corn 

 (Lucretius^ v. 937. , &e.), boughs of oak were carried in the Eleusinian Mys- 

 teries. 



'* Then crown'd with oaken chaplets march'd the priest 

 Of Eleusinian Ceres, and with boughs 

 Of oak were overshadow 'd in the feast 

 The teeming basket and the mystic vase." Tighe. 



Virgil, in the first Gcorgic, says, — 



" Bacchus and fostering Ceres, powers divine! 

 Who gave us corn for mast, for water wine." Duvdf.n's Virgil. 



And Spenser alludes to this fable in the following lines : — 



" The oak, whose acorns were our food before 

 That Ceres' seed of mortal man was known, 

 Which first Triptolemene taught to be sown." 



Boughs of oak with acorns were carried in marriage ceremonies, as emblems 



of fecundity. (Arcfueol. Attic., 107.) Sophocles, in the fragment of Rhizoiomi^ 



describes 1 1< cate as I rowned with oak leaves and serpents. Pliny relates of 



u the shores of the Cauchian Sea, that, undermined by the waves, 



and propelled by the winds, they bore off' with them vast masses of earth on their 



interwoven roots, and occasioned the greatest terror to the Romans, whose 



encountered these flouting islands. (Hist. Nat.., xvi. I.) OftheHer- 



< .iiun Pofeel be says, " These enormous oaks, unaffected by ages, and coeval 



with the world, b\ a destiny almost immortal, exceed all wonder. Omitting 



other i ircumi tan C , that might not gain belief, it is well known that hills are 



raised op by the encounter of the jostling roots; or, where the earth may not 



folio wed, that arches, Struggling with each other, and elevated to the 



are carted, m it were, into wide gateways, able to admit the 



• .(<,;. troop of horse." (Ibid* xvi. 2.) This forest is described 



