08 ON THE HARD WOODS OF COMMERCE. 



applicable to numerous purposes of tlie cabinet- maker and the wood - 

 turner. It rarely exceeds a foot in diameter, but has been used for 

 veneers. Musk-wood {Eurybia argopliylla) is a timber of a pleasant 

 fragrance, and a beautiful colour, well adapted for turning and 

 cabinet work. The Pomaderris apetala furnishes us with a soft useful 

 wood of a pale colour, well adapted for carver's and turner's work. 

 One of the most complete, extensive, and tastefully designed applica- 

 tions of the hard or fancy woods of commerce was the model of the 

 Royal Exchange, shown at the International Exhibition by Messrs. 

 Robert Fauntleroy and & Co., in which there were specimens of more 

 thau five hundred ornamental woods from different parts of the world. 

 We may close with a word or two on a few other woods occasionally 

 used. The mountain ash (Pyrus aucuparia), the " rowen tree " of 

 Scottish song, yields a beautiful bight wood, cpuite equal to satin-wood 

 in appearance, and, like holly, box, horse chestnut, and apple, very 

 serviceable in inlaying. The root and burr of Quercus pedunculata, and 

 Q. sessiliflora, also rival many foreign woods. The close texture of the 

 maple -wood, with the beauty of its grain and its susceptibility of a high 

 polish, doubtless contributed to its continued use for the manufacture 

 of the pledge cup and wassail bowl. Hence its Scandinavian name of 

 mazer came to be applied to the cup made from the wood of the tree ; 

 and when, at a later period, other woods and even the costliest 

 metals, were substituted, the old designation of the mazer cup was still 

 retained. The late Mr. T. H. Turner, in a series of papers in the 

 Archaeological Journal, on " The Usages of Domestic Life in the Middle 

 Ages," remarks : — " Our ancestors seem to have been greatly attached to 

 their mazers, and to have incurred much cost in enriching them. 

 Quaint legends in English or Latin, monitory of peace and good fellow- 

 ship, were often embossed on their metal rim and on the cover ; or the 

 popular but mystic Saint Christophus, engraved on the bottom of the 

 interior, rose in all his giant proportions before the eyes of the 

 wassailers, giving comfortable assurance that on that festive day, at 

 hast, no mortal harm could befall them." Most of our earlier poets 

 illustrate the familiar use of the maple bowl in ancient times ; it figures 

 at the latest in Scott's " Lord of the Isles." Spenser furnishes a beauti- 

 ful description of a highly wrought emblematical mazer cup, in his 

 Shepherd's Calendar," evidently suggested by the bowl for which the 

 shepherds contend in Virgil's Third Pastoral : — 



" Lo Perigot, the pledge which I plight, 

 A mazer ywrought of the maple ware, 

 Whereon is enchased many a fayre sight, 



Of hears and tigers that make fiers war ; 

 And over them spread a goodly wild vine, 

 Entrailed with a wonton ivy twine. 



" Therehy is a lamh in the wolf s jaws ; 



But see how fast runueth the shepherd swam 

 To save the innocent from the beast -'s paws, 



And here with his sheep hook hath him slain. 

 Tell me such a cup hast thou ever seen ? 



Well might it become any harvest Queen." 



