THE CHESTNUT. 



17 



And Martial : 



" Et quas docta Neapolis creavit, 

 Lento castaneae vapore tostae." 



" And chestnuts, such as learned Naples boasted, 

 With simmering heat by careful housewife roasted." 



Other authors speak of an improved variety pro- 

 duced by grafting the Chestnut on the Ahnond. 

 The fruit thus produced, they say, has a less 

 prickly rind. Thus Palladius : 



Castaneamque trucem depulsis cogit echinis 

 Mirari fructus Isevia poma sui." 



Bids the rough Chestnut change its prickly kind, 

 And deck the tree with balls of polished rind." 



A slight acquaintance with physiological bot- 

 any will suffice to show the impossibility of this 

 change, the two trees being too dissimilar to allow 

 their being grafted on one another. 



Our own poets make frequent mention of roast- 

 ed chestnuts. Thus Ben Jonson speaks of the 



chestnut whilk hath larded (fattened) many a 

 swine ; " and Shakspeare, of ^' the sailor's wife 

 with chestnuts in her lap : " and Milton, writing 

 on the death of his friend, Deodati, says : 



" In whom shall I confide ? Whose counsel find 

 A balmy medicine for my troubled mind ? 

 Or whose discourse, with innocent delight 

 Shall fill me now, and cheat the wintry night — 

 While hisses on my hearth the purple pear, 

 And blackening chestnuts start and crackle there ; 

 While storms abroad the dreary meadows whelm, 

 And the wind thunders through the neighbouring Elm ? " 



Evelyn laments that in his time they were 

 not used as an article of food so much as they 

 deserved. ^^We give that fruit to our swine 



II. c 



