TENNYSON AND BOTANY. 199 



illustrated in those passages of his poems relating to the poplar. 

 This is a tree with which he has "been familiar from early childhood, 

 as we gather from the " Ode to Memory," where he fondly recalls — 



" The seven elms, the poplars four, 

 That stand beside my father's door." 



The famous poplar in "Mariana," which Mr. Read has reproduced in 

 his fine picture of the " Moated Grange," now at South Kensington, is 

 a prominent object in a very striking poem. The locality, it is 

 scarcely necessary to say, is the fen country : 



"About a stone-cast from the wall 



A sluice with blackened waters slept, 

 And o'er it many, round and small, 



The clustered marish-mosses crept. 

 Hard by a poplar shook alway, 



All silver-green with gnarled bark ; 



For leagues no other tree did mark 

 The level waste, the rounding gray." 



As an example of landscape-painting in words, there is nothing more 

 perfect than this in modern literature. We are not aware if the doubt 

 was ever suggested before, but we think it is at least questionable if 

 Mr. Read is right in assuming the particular tree in his poem to be a 

 Lombardy poplar. "Silver-green," a remarkable epithet, is more 

 applicable to the abele, or white poplar, than to the fastigiate Lom- 

 bardy species, and the sound of the trembling of the leaves is less 

 noticeable in the latter than in most of the other poplars. In other 

 poems this rustling noise is described as " lisping," " hissing," and like 

 the sound of " falling showers," phrases all tolerably approximating 

 to exactness. In " In Memoriam " there is a special reference to this 

 white poplar whose silver-green foliage shows much more white than 

 green in a gale of wind : 



"With blasts that blow the poplar white, 

 And lash with storm the streaming pane." 



The " quivering," " tremulous " aspen is also mentioned, but Mr. 

 Tennyson is too good a botanist to fall into the popular error of sup- 

 posing that it is the only tree which has fluttering leaves. Except 

 the Ontario species and one or two others, nearly all the poplars have 

 the same peculiarity, caused, it may not be superfluous to say, by 

 the compression of the leaf-stalk. Yery curious it is to notice in the 

 upper branches, while a light wind is overhead, each particular leaf 

 shaking on its own account, while the branch of which it is a part, 

 and the tree itself, are perfectly motionless. 



Of the beech the notices are scantier and less specific. Its pecul- 

 iarly twisted roots, rich autumn tints, smooth bark, and unusual leafi- 

 ness, are all described, however, more or less poetically. The following 

 verse from " In Memoriam" has a certain pensive sweetness of its own : 



