438 
SACRED AND CLASSICAL PLANTING. 
Full of the traditions of his country, and 
accustomed to hear the Myrtle associated so 
constantly with such traditions, it is not to be 
wondered at that this plant was adopted by 
him as the sine qua non to temples, gardens, 
streams, and splashing fountains. In the 
festival of Europa, at Corinth, a myrtle crown, 
said to be ten yards in circumference, was 
borne in procession through the city. The 
priests of Aphrodite shaded their foreheads 
with wreaths of myrtle, and the statue of that 
matchless goddess herself was often crowned 
with a circlet of the same plant. It was worn 
by the Athenian magistrates, as well as by all 
those who had gained bloodless triumphs. It 
was the reward of victors in the Olympic 
games ; and at Rome the ladies put the leaves 
into their baths, fancying that this plant of 
Venus must be favourable to beauty. The 
general selection of the Myrtle was well made ; 
for it is questionable whether any other would 
have stood the test of being used in such 
multifarious ways, and especially as ornaments 
to the masterpieces both of nature and art. 
In all classical groups this tree should have a 
prominent place ; and in order to encourage 
such planters, I may mention that young plants 
nine inches high stood out in my nursery last 
winter uninjured. The cause of its succeeding 
so indifferently as an open air plant, in Britain, 
is certainly on account of its being by most 
nurserymen kept in-doors during cold weather, 
and treated as a green-house plant ; whereas 
it is clearly capable of accommodating itself 
to this climate, and growing wherever the 
Arbutus will thrive. The allusions to this 
plant in the Bible are few. Referring to the 
effect of the Gospel, or the reign of Christ on 
the state of the world and the dispositions of 
mankind, it is said: "Instead of the thorn 
shall come up the fir-tree, and instead of the 
briar shall come up the myrtle-tree." 
In the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and 
John, the Hyssop is mentioned. It grows 
on the mountains around the city of Jeru- 
salem ; and as it is plentiful in Calvary, it is 
probable that it was a handful of this herb 
that was plucked, imbued with vinegar, and 
applied to the parched lips of the dying 
Saviour. 
The Box-tree is another Biblical tree, but 
the sacred allusions to it are slight. In the 
Augustan era the Roman villas were profusely 
adorned with this tree clipped into a variety 
of figures. In Greece it appears to have been 
kept rather in the back-ground. 
The Pine and Fir are also mentioned in the 
sacred text, but the references to them are 
not sufficiently clear to warrant any identifi- 
cation. 
I close the Biblical list of ligneous plants 
suited to the climate of Britain with the Rose. 
Great diversity of opinion exists among the 
learned in relation to the true meaning of the 
term habetzeleth, in our version of the Bible 
translated Rose. The Seventy interpreters, 
with Jerome, render it "the flower of the 
fields." Others think the Asphodel is meant, 
or some other kindred bulbous-rooted plant, 
and in support of such supposition, the render- 
ing of the term is so far favourable — habab, 
he loved ; and batzel, a bulb or onion. At 
any rate, there is not the slightest doubt that 
the Rose was known and appreciated in Bib- 
Heal times, though there is some ground for 
supposing that the species of our genus 
(Rosa) are not referred to in the passages of 
Scripture. 
We now come to those kinds which are 
more immediately associated with classic times. 
It is idle to deny that such trees as shaded 
the land of Olympus can be looked upon with 
indifference by persons with any pretensions 
to refinement. In Greece trees were full of 
poetry, ministering both to the eye and ear, 
" A beauteous band oft heard, 
Tuneful upon her heights.'* 
And it can be neither idle nor unprofitable 
at the present time to attempt to awaken 
similar sensibilities. She who sat upon her 
seven hills, the mistress of the world, had also 
her trees and shrubs, well worthy of beiug 
selected and grown together. 
It is a remarkable feature connected with 
those trees and shrubs known to the Greeks, 
that a great proportion of them are odoriferous 
— many of them exquisitely so. For example, 
the Daphne Cneorum, Thyme, Lavender, Rose- 
mary, Myrica, Rose, Hawthorn, Sweet Bay, 
and Myrtle. 
I shall only enumerate the more striking 
species, or such of them as have come down 
to us with the most interesting associations. 
One of the first is the Cypress, well known 
to the ancients, and highly prized. It was 
particularly plentiful in the Isle of Crete, the 
inhabitants of which, forgetting his immorta- 
lity, boasted that the tomb of Jupiter was in 
their Island, and shaded with magnificent 
specimens of the cypress. It has also been 
permitted to this tree to be classed as a native 
of Cyprus, the birth-place of Venus, where 
every thing animate and inanimate bears the 
impress of beauty. But of all the localities to 
which this tree is assigned, perhaps none is 
deserving of so much notice as its distribution 
around ancient Rome. That city, it is true, 
is no longer in existence, but the eternal 
features of nature there remain the same, and 
they are yet graced with the same noble 
species. Southward of. the Capitol, then, 
under a calm blue sky, may be seen the plain 
of Latium, forty miles in diameter, intersected 
by the Tiber ; the Palatine hill studded with 
