330 



THE BEECHo 



drooping heads the fertile flowers are solitary 

 and on stouter stalks. The first soon vrither 

 and drop off" ; the latter produce seed-vessels, 

 which are covered with blunt prickles, and, as 

 they ripen, open in four valves, disclosing two 

 sharply triangular, pointed nuts. It is when 

 seen in the full luxuriance of its summer foliage 

 that the Beech is most admired ; at this season 

 it is, if a solitary tree, a mass of shining deep 

 green, from the ground to its summit ; and the 

 lover of Nature, who has taken refuge in a grove 

 of Beeches from the sultry heat of a cloudless 

 summer's day, will not fail to experience that 

 inexplicable feeling of sadness, mingled with long- 

 ing, which the contemplation of Nature's greater 

 works always excites. 



Under the broad Beech-tree" honest old 

 Isaac Walton loved to sit, ^ viewing the silver 

 streams glide silently towards their centre, the 

 tempestuous sea;" and, as he thus sat, these 

 and other sights so fully possest his soul with 

 content, that he thought^ as the poet has happily 

 exprest it, 



^ I was for that time lifted above earth, 

 And possest joys not promised in my birth.' " 



Fletcher chooses the same retreat for the hum- 

 ble and contented hero of one of his laj^s : — 



No empty hopes, no courtly fears him fright, 

 No begging wants his middle fortune bite ; 

 But sweet content exiles both misery and spite. 



* These, after they have fallen from the tree, are sometimes care- 

 fully collected by gardeners, dried, and preserved for packing fruit. 

 They are as soft as cotton, and do not communicate any kind of. 

 scent to the fruit. 



