CHAP. CXIII. CONl'FEIUE. CUPRE'SSUS. 24-73 



" Beneath whose widely wasting breath 

 The very cypress droops to death : 

 Dark tree! still sad when others' grief is fled, 

 The only constant mourner of the dead." 



Sir Walter Scott's ballad in Rokeby is well known : — 



" Oh, lady ! twine no wreath for me, 

 Or twine it of the cypress tree. 

 Too lively glow the lilies light, 

 The varnish'd holly 's all too bright ; 

 The mayflower and the eglantine 

 May shade a brow less sad than mine : 

 But, lady, weave no wreath for me, 

 Or weave it of the cypress tree." 



Properties and Uses. The wood of the cypress, as we have already seen, 

 was much used by the ancients for all purposes which required durability ; 

 and Horace says that whatever they thought worthy of being handed down 

 to the most remote posterity was preserved in the wood of that tree, or of the 

 cedar. It was occasionally used for building; and the bridge thrown by Semira- 

 mis over the Euphrates is supposed to have been built of it. The Romans used 

 the wood of the wild, or spreading, cypress, which they called citron wood, for 

 beds and tables ; and it was highly esteemed for its numerous spots and figures, 

 from which the tables made of it were called menses tigrince et panther ince. It was 

 used in the funeral ceremonies ; and, when any one was dead, it was placed at 

 the door, or in the vestibule of the house in which the body lay. Evelyn 

 enumerates many purposes to which the wood of the cypress was applied : 

 — " What the uses of this timber are for chests and other utensils, harps, and 

 divers other musical instruments (it being a sonorous wood, and therefore em- 

 ployed for organ-pipes, as heretofore for supporters of vines, poles, and planks, 

 resisting the worm, moth, and all putrefaction, to eternity), the Venetians suffi- 

 ciently understod, who did every twentieth year, and oftener (the Romans every 



thirteenth), make a considerable revenue of it out of Candy (Candia) 



But there was in Candy a vast wood of these trees, belonging to the republic, by 

 malice or accident, or, perhaps, by solar heat (as were many woods, 74 years 

 after, here in England), set on fire; which, beginning 1400, continued burning 

 7 years before it could be extinguished ; being fed by the unctuous nature of the 

 timber, of which there were to be seen at Venice planks above 4 ft. broad." 

 Evelyn adds that the chips were used to flavour rich wines; that the cones 

 and chips burnt, will destroy and drive away moths, gnats, and flies ; and 

 that it yields a gum not much inferior to mastic. The tree is not found of 

 sufficient size, or in sufficient quantities, for the wood to be employed as 

 timber at the present day ; but it is said to be still used for building in Candia and 

 Malta; and it is employed as the inner coffin, or shell, for burying the popes, 

 there being also a coffin of lead, and an outer one of pine or fir. Du 

 Hamel says that he had the fence of his melon -ground made with posts of 

 cypress, which, at the time he wrote, had been 25 years in the ground, and 

 were still quite fresh. He recommends trees of 7 in. or 8 in. in diameter for 

 forming palisades for the defence of fortified towns during war, and for other 

 services of a similar kind, where oak of the same dimensions does not last 

 above 7 or 8 years. The young branches of the cypress make, he says, excel- 

 lent props for vines ; and, doubtless, the young shoots in England would make 

 very durable props for supporting plants. In Britain, however, the cypress 

 is only to be regarded as an ornamental tree, and it is one of the most 

 remarkable belonging to that class, the future growth and shape of which 

 may be predicted with tolerable certainty. The planter of an oak, an ash, 

 or an elm, can never tell, till the tree is full grown, whether it will have a 

 widely spreading, or a tall erect, head ; but the planter of the spruce or silver 

 fir, or of the Lombardy poplar or evergreen cypress, can predict with certainty 

 that the form will be conical ; and he may estimate the size and shape of the cy- 

 press, in a given time, with more exactness than he can that of any of the others. 

 Like other trees of narrow conical forms, such as the Lombardy poplar, or even 

 the spruce fir and the larch, the cypress is not calculated to produce a grand 

 effect when planted in masses ; but in rows, singly, under certain circum- 



