



B84 DURABILITY. 
DURABILITY. 
CORNELIAN CHERRY TREE. 
A huntress issuing from the wood, 
Reclining on her cornel spear she stood. 
DRYDEN. 
Tus cornel tree does not grow higher than 
eighteen or twenty feet. It lives for ages, but 
grows very slowly; it blooms in the spring, 
and yields its crimson berries in the winter. 
They are a very handsome fruit, and were for- 
merly made into tarts and robs de cornis. The 
Greeks have consecrated this tree to Apollo, 
because it is supposed that that god presides over 
the works of the mind, which demand much time 
and reflection. Charming emblem! teaching 
every one who wishes to cultivate letters, elo- 
quence, and poetry, that to merit the lanrel 
crown, it is necessary to bear for a long time 
that of patience and meditation. After Ro- 
mulus had drawn the plan of Rome on the 
land which gave him birth, he launched his 
javelin on Mount Palatine; the shaft of the 
javelin is said to have been of cornel tree; it 
took root, grew, and became an immense tree ; 
and this prodigy was regarded as the happy pre- 
sage of the strength and duration of that extra- 
ordinary empire. 
The wood is very hard, and Evelyn says that 
when made into wedges it will last like iron. 
