874 



SYLVAN SKETCHES. 



Dodsley, in his poem on Agriculture, refers to the 

 beauty of its grain : 



" The sweet-leaved Wahiut's undulated grain. 

 Polished with care, adds to the workman's art 

 Its varying beauties." 



Evelyn says, that some of the Walnut timber which 

 comes to us from Virginia " is very black of colour, and 

 so admirably streaked, as to represent natural flowers, 

 landscapes, and other fancies/' 



Cowley has a very curious passage, in which he com- 

 pares the Walnut to the brain of man. He tells us that 

 its oil nourishes the hair. Indeed he enumerates a variety 

 of uses ; and badly as it is translated, its oddity will, 

 perhaps, render it not altogether uninteresting : 



The Walnut, then, approached, more large and tall 

 His fruit, which we a nut, the gods an acorn call : 

 Jove's acorn, which does no small praise confess 

 To 've called it man's ambrosia had been less. 

 Nor can this head-like nut, shaped like the brain 

 Within, be said that form by change to gain, 

 Or Caryon called by learned Greeks in vain : 

 For membranes soft as silk her kernel bind. 

 Whereof the inmost is of tenderest kind. 

 Like those which on the brain of man we find ; 

 All v/hich are in a seam -joined shell enclosed; 

 Which of this brain the skull may be supposed : 

 This very skull envelop'd is again 

 In a green coat, his pericranium : 

 Lastly, that no objection may remain 

 To thwart her near alliance to the brain, 

 She nourishes the hair, remembering how 

 Herself, deformed, without her leaves does show ; 

 On barren scalps she makes fresh honours grow. 



