OF FOREST-TREES. 



263 



Unknotty Fir, the solace-shading Planes, 

 Rough Chestnuts, Maple fleck'd with different grains. 

 Stream-bordering Willow, Lotus loving lakes. 

 Tough Box, whom never sappy spring forsakes. 

 The slender Tamarisk, with trees that bear 

 A purple Fig, nor Myrtles absent were. 

 The wanton Ivy wreath'd in amorous twines. 

 Vines bearing grapes, and Elms supporting Vines; 

 Straight Service-trees, trees dropping pitch, fruit-red 

 Arbutus, these the rest accompanied. 

 •With limber Palms, of victory the prize. 

 And upright Pine, whose leaves like bristles rise, 

 Priz'd by the mother of the gods 



This incomparable poet is imitated by our divine Spenser, where he 

 brings his gentle knight into a shady grove, praising 



' the trees so straight and hy, 



The sayling Pine, the Cedar proud and tall. 

 The Vine-prop Elme, the Poplar never dry. 

 The builder Oake, sole king of forrests all. 

 The Aspine good for staves, the Cypress funerall. 

 The Laurel], meed of mighty conquerors 

 And poets sage, the Firre that weepeth still. 

 The Willow worne of forlorne paramours. 

 The Eugh obedient to the bender's will. 

 The Birch for shaftes, the Sallow for the mill. 

 The Mirrhe sweet bleeding in the bitter wound. 

 The war-like Beech, the Ash for nothing ill. 

 The fruitful Olive, and the Platane round. 



The carver Holme, the Maple seeldom inward sound. canto i. 



And in this symphony might the noble Tasso bear likewise his part, but 

 that these are sufficient, et tria sunt omnia. 



What now remains, concerns only some general precepts and direc- 

 tions applicable to most of that we have formerly touched; together with 

 a brief of what farther laws have been enacted for the improvement and 

 preservation of woods ; and which having despatched, we shall with 

 a short parsenesis, touching the present ordering and disposing of the 

 royal plantations for the future benefit of the nation, put an end to this 

 rustic Discourse. 



L12 



CHAP. IV. 



SANDYS. 



