170 
THE BAY AND PALM. 
THE BAY. 
LAP HI’S NOBILES. 
“ The laurel, meed of mighty conquerors 
And poets sage.’* 
The Lauras Nobilis, or sweet bay, though but a shrub 
in our country, in Asia and the southern parts of 
Europe, its proper birthplace, attains to the height of 
twenty or thirty feet. It grows very freely on the 
banks of the river Peneus in Thessaly; and hence, 
perhaps, the fable of die metamorphosis of Daphne, 
daughter of diat river. It also, with classic propriety, 
adorns mounts Ida and Athos. There has long been 
some confusion between the laurel and the bay *; die 
* Gray (the poet) observes and corrects an error on this subject. 
Speaking of a work he had just been reading, he says, the author 
“ fancies the Roman laurus to be our laurel; though it is undoubtedly 
the bay-tree, which is odoratuin, and, I believe, still called Lauro or 
Alioro at Rome.” 
