70 



THE OAK. 



Chaucer ; and having sprung from an acorn borne 

 by a tree which perhaps flourished when our holy 

 religion was preached in Palestine by the Saviour, 

 whose coming was to banish from the earth all 

 those barbarous rites which were then being en- 

 acted beneath the shade of its branches. 



This is not all purely imaginary ; the evidence 

 in favour of an antiquity nearly as great as that 

 assumed being as conclusive as the necessarily 

 imperfect records will admit. 



Close by the gate of the water- walk at Mag- 

 dalen College in Oxford, grew an Oak, which 

 perhaps stood there a sapling when Alfred the 

 Great founded the University. This period only 

 includes a space of nine hundred years, which is 

 no great age for an Oak. It is a difficult matter 

 indeed to ascertain the age of a tree. The age of 

 a castle or abbey is the object of history ; even a 

 common house is recorded by the families that 

 built it. All these objects arrive at maturity in 

 their youth, if I may so speak. But the tree, 

 gradually completing its growth, is not worth re- 

 cording in the early part of its existence. It is 

 then only a common tree ; and afterwards, when 

 it becomes remarkable for its age, all memory of 

 its youth is lost. This tree, however, can almost 

 produce historical evidence for the age assigned 

 to it. About five hundred years after the thne of 

 Alfred, Wilham of Wainfleet, Dr. Stukely tells 

 us, expressly ordered his college to be founded 

 near the Great Oak ; and an Oak could not, I 

 think, be less than five hundred years of age to 

 merit that title, together with the honour of fix- 

 ing the site of a college. When the magnificence 

 of Cardinal Wolsey erected that handsome tower 



