its unmolested state, were in all likelihood, in the Shaksperean age, abundant in this country. The number of ornamental evergreens introduced at that early horticultural period was so limited, that they might be told upon the fingers. The laurels, the Mahonias, the rhododendrons of to-day, were quite unknown. In their absence the box would be esteemed to a degree we can now hardly imagine, and commensurate pride be taken in the spectacle of its green perfection. Chaucer takes up the Scriptural idea of the tree, or that which presents it to us as the emblem of Christian fortitude, but secularizes it into the simply imperturbable: He like was to behold The box-tree, or the aspis dead and cold. The Knight's Tale. THE HOLLY. So with that supreme evergreen, old England's indomitable holly, the only wild one that shines-Shakspere, every Christmas-tide, admired its coral bracelets just as to-day we do ourselves. Branches of holly were employed in the Elizabethan period, by old usage, as the fitting symbol of radiant victory, life triumphing over death, glossy leaves and scarlet berries defeating frost and snow; thus of the great Advent which Christmas commemorates. Still he makes mention of it only once, in the little song in As You Like It, ii., 7. But who is the singer, and where is it sung? In Arden, by Amiens, who received his inspiration from its beautiful "green,” and found in the presence of nature's wild holly abounding satisfaction. THE BIRCH. Notwithstanding its incomparable grace of figure, the delicate and unique whiteness of the stem, and the lightsomeness of the depending tresses-features which render it "the lady of the woods," Shakspere again speaks of the birch only once, and even then only for what it supplies. "I have not red," says old Turner, "of any virtue the birch hath in physic. Howbeit it serveth for many good uses, and for none better than for betynge of stubborn boys, that either bye, or will not learn."(Herbal, 1551). Fond fathers, Having bound up the threatening twigs of birch, For terror, not to use; in time the rod Measure for Measure, i., 4. In attempting to mend obviously incorrect Shaksperean readings, we must take very particular care not to go yet further astray. It may be permitted, however, to ask, Is it possible that the birch can be the tree intended in the very perplexing passage in the Tempest ?— And thy broom groves, Whose shadow the dismissèd bachelor loves, Birch-twigs are used for the manufacture of besoms and "brooms" as well as for the stimulation of boys such as old Turner's, and Shakspere may have called the tree, in conformity with a very common custom of language, after the implement manufactured from it. Are we sure that he really wrote "broom"? In any case, that he meant the Spartium Scoparium, cannot for a moment be supposed. The capacities of the Spartium, and its dimensions, even when at the largest, forbid the idea. The birch, on the other hand, would serve the purpose perfectly. Slim in composition, offering the fewest impediments to free movement of any trees accustomed to grow in company, a more suitable retreat than a grove of birches could hardly be offered to a purposeless, forlorn, and sauntering lover. "Shadow" does not necessarily imply a darkened covert. It is enough to understand, in the present instance, a place of seclusion, similar to Valentine's, This shadowy desert, unfrequented wood, I better love than flourishing, peopled towns. And to the nightingale's complaining notes Two Gentlemen of Verona, v., 4. THE ASH. The ash, renowned, like the birch, for the singular beauty of its habit and profile, is also passed over by Shakspere, except in reference to the strength of spear-shafts made from the wood: O let me twine Mine arms about that body, where against My grainèd ash a thousand times hath broke. Coriolanus, iv., 5. No figure of speech is more common in language (as illustrated just above in the probable meaning of "broom"), and in that curious verse in Nahum, “The fir-trees shall be terribly shaken" (ii., 3), the sense being as here in Shakspere, the spear-shafts, which in the dreadful day foretold, are to be brandished aloft. THE ELM. The elm holds an agreeable place in Shakspere by reason of the beautiful image in the Midsummer Night's Dream; Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms. Enrings the barky fingers of the elm.—(iv., 1.) "Just as the woodbine and the ivy clasp and encircle the tree; so, my love," Titania means, will I, during thy slumbers, embrace thee." In 2nd Henry the Fourth (ii., 4) a “dead elm" furnishes an odd kind of satirical metaphor; and in the Comedy of Errors, ii., 2, we have an allusion to the practice of the vine-cultivators of ancient Italy, who were accustomed to train their plants to young elm-trees, as many times spoken of in old Roman literature. The passage again represents the elm as masculine,— F Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine, Whose weakness, married to thy stronger state, with the addition of a most delicately beautiful setting forth of one of the loveliest instincts of woman,-that one, which arising upon the strength and tenacity of her affections, leads her always to cling to her mate, whose own great pride is to render support. No one ever preserved more thoroughly than Shakspere in pictures of the relation of the sexes, the perfect and healthy balance of manhood and womanhood which it pleased God to design in the beginning. THE ELDER. The homely, old-fashioned elder of the hedgerow, and of hillsides otherwise untenanted by an arborescent plant, would become familiar to Shakspere in his boyhood, for is it not this to which every lad brought up in the country resorts for toys and pop-guns? One can easily imagine the recollection of the sports of his schooldays that would suggest the image in Henry the Fifth,— "That's a perilous shot out of an elder-gun, that a poor and private displeasure can do against a monarch" (iv., 1); and that other in the Merry Wives, where the pith, so light and compressible, so easily forced out, stands for the reverse of “heart-of-oak,”—“what says my Esculapius, my Galen, my heart of elder?" (ii., 3). The copious, creamy bloom of the tree, precisely concurrent |