thought coeval with the world itself," the Fig tree, "under which the wolf suckled the founder of Rome and his brother, lasting (as Tacitus calculated) 840 years, putting out new shoots, and presaging the translation of that empire from the Cæsarian line, happening in Nero's reign." But in other cases the

"1

estimates rest on a surer foundation, and it cannot be doubted that there are trees still living which were already of considerable size at the time of the Conquest. The Soma Cypress of Lombardy, which is 120 feet high and 23 in circumference, is calculated to go back to forty years before the birth of Christ. Francis the First is said to have driven his sword into it in despair after the battle of Padua, and Napoleon altered his road over the Simplon so as to spare it.

Ferdinand and Isabella in 1476 swore to maintain the privileges of the Biscayans under the old Oak of Guernica. In the Ardennes an Oak cut down in 1824 contained a funeral urn and some Samnite coins. A writer at the time drew the conclu

1 Evelyn's Sylva.

sion that it must have been already a large tree when Rome was founded, and though the facts do not warrant this conclusion, the tree did, no doubt, go back to Pagan times. The great Yew of Fountains Abbey is said to have sheltered the monks when the abbey was rebuilt in 1133, and is estimated at an age of 1300 years; that at Brabourne in Kent at 3000. De Candolle gives the following as the ages attainable:

Nowhere is woodland scenery more beautiful than where it passes gradually into the open country. The separate trees, having more room both for their roots and branches, are finer, and can be better seen, while, when they are close together, "one cannot see the wood for the trees." The vistas which open out are full of mystery and of promise,

and tempt us gradually out into the green fields.

What pleasant memories these very words recall, games in the hay as children, and sunny summer days throughout life.

"Consider," says Ruskin,1 "what we owe to the meadow grass, to the covering of the dark ground by that glorious enamel, by the companies of those soft countless and peaceful spears. The fields! Follow but forth for a little time the thought of all that we ought to recognise in those words. All spring and summer is in them the walks by silent scented paths, the rests in noonday heat, the joy of herds and flocks, the power of all shepherd life and meditation, the life of sunlight upon the world, falling in emerald. streaks, and soft blue shadows, where else it would have struck on the dark mould or scorching dust, pastures beside the pacing brooks, soft banks and knolls of lowly hills, thymy slopes of down overlooked by the blue line of lifted sea, crisp lawns all dim with early dew, or smooth in evening warmth of

1 Modern Painters.

barred sunshine, dinted by happy feet, and softening in their fall the sound of loving voices.

"Go out, in the spring time, among the meadows that slope from the shores of the Swiss lakes to the roots of their lower mountains. There, mingled with the taller gentians and the white narcissus, the grass grows deep and free, and as you follow the winding mountain paths, beneath arching boughs all veiled and dim with blossom, - paths, that for ever droop and rise over the green banks and mounds sweeping down in scented undulation, steep to the blue water, studded here and there with new mown heaps, filling all the air with fainter sweetness, look up towards the higher hills, where the waves of everlasting green roll silently into their long inlets among the shadows of the pines; and we may, perhaps, at last know the meaning of those quiet words of the 147th Psalm, 'He maketh the grass to grow upon the mountains.'"

"On fine days," he tells us again in his

Autobiography, "when the grass was dry, I

used to lie down on it, and draw the blades as they grew, with the ground herbage of buttercup or hawkweed mixed among them, until every square foot of meadow, or mossy bank, became an infinite picture and possession to me, and the grace and adjustment to each other of growing leaves, a subject of more curious interest to me than the composition of any painter's masterpieces."

In the passage above quoted, Ruskin alludes especially to Swiss meadows. They are especially remarkable in the beauty and variety of flowers. In our fields the herbage is mainly grass, and if it often happens that they glow with Buttercups or are white with Ox-eyedaisies, these are but unwelcome intruders and add nothing to the value of the hay. Swiss meadows, on the contrary, are sweet and lovely with wild Geraniums, Harebells, Bluebells, Pink Restharrow, Yellow Lady's Bedstraw, Chervil, Eyebright, Red and White Silenes, Geraniums, Gentians, and many other flowers which have no familiar English names; all adding not only to the beauty and sweetness of the meadows, but forming a valuable part