That in this desert inaccessible, Under the shade of melancholy boughs, Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time; If ever been where bells have knoll'd to church, If ever from your eyelids wiped a tear, As You Like It, ii., 7. The "colour" laid on by sadness, Emerson might have gone on to tell us, is rarely other than one that presently fades and disappears, seeing that the grand function of nature is to refresh and revive the heart. Always ready with an echo for joyfulness, she refuses to sustain the mournful. "In the woods," according to his own. experience, "we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life-no disease, no calamity, which (leaving me my eyes) nature cannot repair." Old Homer represents Achilles as regaining his lost composure through playing on his harp to the sound of the sea. Shakspere keeps us to the forest; he knew where best to lay his encouraging scene. He shows withal his consummate art in interweaving with wild nature the still more potent realities of human emotion. Orlando soon discovers that the woods, after all, are not melancholy, and henceforward we ourselves enjoy them threefold. Where Rosalind breathes, how can any place be sad-Rosalind, darling maid, one of the quintette of Shaksperean women to be compared to any one of whom is compliment enough for any of her sex that ever lived Rosalind, who, in her boy's clothes, makes believe that she does not know who writes the verses, or for whom they are intended. Women love nothing better than to be able to feign ignorance of the emotions and actions they hold most dear. Shakspere, in this charming episode, shows once again that the poet rightfully so named, is, as the ancients said, neither man alone, nor woman alone, but homo. Shakspere did not care to learn much about what a botanist would call the "species" of trees. It is doubtful if he knew familiarly more than half-a-dozen different kinds, including even the smaller ones of the hedgerow. He never once mentions the beech or the abele, and even the ash and the elm hold no place in his landscape pictures. But how quick and accurate his perception of the phenomena of their life, and of the part they play in the universal poësy! This is the kind of knowledge to be most envied, for it is that to which comparison of forms and colours never reaches. A single instance of the first will suffice. We are all well acquainted with the great outpour of foliage which marks the spring. Are we as apt to notice that in July there is in many kinds of trees a lull or pause, followed in a little while by a distinctly second series of twigs? Sometimes they are yellowish, sometimes roseate, occasionally of a warm and shining ruddy hue, looking like bouquets among the green. And never, since the middle summer's spring, By paved fountain, or by rushy brook, Midsummer Night's Dream, ii., 2. The trees which in our own country are most especially apt to produce these beautiful midsummer shoots, are the oak and the sycamore, the reason being found in the exceptionally large number of lateral buds which these two are prone to develop, in a circlet, around the terminal bud, one of any such circlet, wherever met with, always anticipating its neighbours. Shakspere could scarcely have been able to observe them in the sycamore, as in the time of Elizabeth this tree was only beginning to be known. When he wrote these charming lines his thoughts were with Old England's oak. Turn now to the poësy proper. In the sunshine of high summer, The green leaves quiver with the cooling wind, Titus Andronicus, ii., 3. Then we are asked to note how quiet they can be :— The moon shines bright; in such a night as this, When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees, Presently the breeze quickens: The southern wind Doth play the trumpet to his purposes, Ist Henry the Fourth, v., I. Autumn approaches now :— I have lived long enough: my way of life Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf.—Macbeth, v., 3. Lastly, mark the observation, so consummately accurate, of the fact not more true in botany than so admirably employed as an image, that a tree never casts its principal or larger leaves, till decay of everything is imminent :— When clouds are seen, wise men put on their cloaks; King Richard the Third, ii., 3. THE OAK. Every country has its "forest monarch." In England, this proud title is rightfully accorded to the oak-the majestic Quereus Robur which in associations as well. as figure and attributes, owns no rival. Many circumstances contribute to the supremacy. The dimensions, when full-grown, exceed those of every other British tree. The outline or profile, though in general character so determinate that to mistake an oak is impossible, is inexhaustibly various. The trunk, huge and massive, though never aspiring, holds the place among foresters which the Norman pillar does in cathedral architecture. The lower boughs, spreading horizontally, often so nearly touch the ground as to allow of our gathering not only the acorns, but their pretty tesselated cups. The rugged bark is peculiarly open to the embroidery of delicate mosses, green and golden; and just high enough to be secure from touch, there is often a beautiful tuft of spangled polypody, in winter a cheerful ornament unknown to any other English tree. Neither is there in England any tree that presents so wonderful a diversity of leaf-outline, or a richer variety of summer tint. The autumnal hue is scarcely exceeded even by the beech and the elm; and when these beautiful leaves, their tasks completed, pass away, not afraid of dying, the birch itself does not disclose secrets of loveliness more delectable. It should never be forgotten in regard to deciduous trees in general, and in reference to the oak most particularly, that however delightful the spectacle at midsummer, when clothed with foliage, slaking its mighty thirst in the well-pleased sunshine, the inmost form is learned only in winter, or when we are reminded of the classic fable of Mount Ida. To Shakspere, without question, all these features, the pretty minor ones as well as the noble, must have been familiar. His imagination must needs also have been influenced by the noble ones, an almost daily spectacle, and to a degree it is now very difficult to estimate; and if the minor ones receive no express or exact mention, it is simply because the verse was complete without. How beautiful the picture of the aged tree by the water side in peaceful Arden, the sturdy roots laid bare by the washing away of the earth that once protected them: |