PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
345 
And this one record has been sufficient to alter the emblematic 
character of the Willow—“this one incident has made the 
Willow an emblem of the deepest of sorrows, namely, sorrow 
for sin found out, and visited with its due punishment. From 
that time the Willow appears never again to have been associ¬ 
ated with feelings of gladness. Even among heathen nations, 
fot what reason we know not, it was a tree of evil omen, and 
was employed to make the torches carried at funerals. Our 
own poets made the Willow the symbol of despairing woe.”— 
Johns. This is the more remarkable because the tree referred 
to in the Psalms, the Weeping Willow ( Sa/ix Babylonica ), 
which by its habit of growth is to us so suggestive of crushing 
sorrow, was quite unknown in Europe till a very recent period. 
“ It grows abundantly on the banks of the Euphrates, and 
other parts of Asia, as in Palestine, and also in North Africa 
but it is said to have been introduced into England during 
the last century, and then in a curious way. “ Many years 
ago, the well-known poet, Alexander Pope, who resided at 
Twickenham, received a basket of Figs as a present from 
Turkey. The basket was made of the supple branches of the 
Weeping Willow, the very same species under which the 
captive Jews sat when they wept by the waters of Babylon. 
The poet valued highly the small and tender twigs associated 
with so much that was interesting, and he untwisted the 
basket, and planted one of the branches in the ground. It 
had some tiny buds upon it, and he hoped he might be able 
to rear it, as none of this species of Willow was known in 
England. Happily the Willow is very quick to take root and 
grow. The little branch soon became a tree, and drooped 
gracefully over the river, in the same manner that its race had 
done over the waters of Babylon. From that one branch 
all the Weeping Willows in England are descended.”— Kirby’s 
Trees 1 
There is probably no tree that contributes so largely to 
the conveniences of English life as the Willow. Putting aside 
1 This is the traditional history of the introduction of the Weeping 
Willow into England, but it is very doubtful. 
