H 
nowned individual, lead us beneath their shades to 
«hold high converse with the mighty dead.” lint 
where this peculiar charm is wanting, imagination 
bodies forth scenes and stories of its own creating, and 
« mves to airv nothing a local habitation and a name.” 
An aged tree points to the past, a sapling to the 
future: and whilst the mind is exercised in these remote 
contemplations, we feel the force of Dr. Johnson’s well- 
known observation: — 
“ Whatever withdraws us from the power of our 
senses,—whatever makes the past, the distant, or the 
future predominate over the present,—advances us in 
the dignity of thinking beings.” 
The elm, however, is a tree which records events not 
only of individual or national, but of universal, interest. 
It was beneath an elm that Penn signed his celebrated 
treaty with the Indians. It was near an elm that the 
saintly Hooper suffered martyrdom ! For a most heart¬ 
stirring account of that event the reader is referred to 
Soames’ interesting and learned History of the Reform¬ 
ation, a short abstract from which we here subjoin: — 
“ Having reached the spot where stood the prepar¬ 
ations* for his painful end, he knelt down and spent 
* “ Which was near unto the great elm-tree over against the college of 
priests, where he was wont to preach.”— I’oxk. 
