THE WILLOW. 



Salix. 



Natural Order — AMENTACEiE. 

 Class — Dkecia. Order — Triandria. 



By the common consent of mankind^ trees have 

 in all ages been selected as affording the most 

 appropriate emblems of the passions by which 

 both states and individuals have been sw^ayed, as 

 well as to indicate the various changes in condition 

 to which, from time to time, they have been sub- 

 jected. I need only mention the Palm, the Olive, 

 the Bay, the Cypress, and I recall at once the 

 ideas of rejoicing, peace, victory, and mourning. 

 The Willow is remarkable among these for hav- 

 ing been in different ages emblematic of two 

 directly opposite feelings, at one time being asso- 

 ciated with the Palm, at another with the Cypress. 

 The earliest mention of the Willow which occurs 

 in any composition is to be found in the Penta- 

 teuch,* where the Israelites were directed at the 

 institution of the feast of Tabernacles to take 

 the boughs of goodly trees, branches of Palm- 

 trees, and the boughs of thick trees, and Willows 

 of the brook, and to rejoice before the Lord their 

 God seven days." 



To wanderers in a dry and barren wilderness, 

 the bare mention of a tree bearing the name of 

 the " Willow of the Brook," must have come as- 



* Lev. xxiii. 40. 



