with midsummer, is somewhat honey-scented; the rich black-purple clusters of fruit recommend themselves for a kind of wine or cordial;-in such company we do not look for unpleasing scent of foliage; so much the more remarkable therefore the contrasted character adverted to in Cymbeline, where the tree supplies a metaphor quite seasonable:

And let the stinking elder, grief, entwine,

His perishing root with the increasing vine.-(iv., 2.) In Love's Labour's Lost the poet shows his acquaintance with the old tradition preserved by Sir John Mandeville, playing at the same time, upon the twofold meaning of the word;

HOLOFERNES: Begin, sir, you are my elder.

BIRON: Well followed: Judas was hanged on an elder.

(v., 2.) Lastly, in Titus Andronicus, the play one would gladly see dismissed altogether from the Shaksperean brotherhood, an elder marks the scene of a tragic incident;

Look for thy reward

Among the nettles at the elder-tree.

This is the pit, and this the elder-tree.—(ii., 4.)

THE SYCAMORE.

The sycamore holds a place intermediate between the trees, wild in our own island, of which Shakspere had distinct personal knowledge, and those which like the

cedar, the cypress, and the myrtle, he talks of only from hearsay. Now universally diffused, and so thoroughly naturalized as to be included in the catalogues of indigenous British plants, in Shakspere's time the sycamore had been quite recently introduced from the mountainous parts of central Europe; and although he may have seen it in one of the "walks and places of pleasure of noblemen," where, according to Gerard, 1596, it was "specially planted for the shadow's sake," the probabilities are that he used the name purely by adoption. Every one has enjoyed the coolness given in summer by the abundant vine-like leaves, recalling, while in their green shade, the beautiful picture in the Æneid, Pinea silva mihi multos dilecta per annos,

Lucus in arce fuit summâ, quò sacra ferebant,

Nigranti piceâ, trabibusque obscurus acernis.*

Every one is prepared thereby for the corresponding picture in Love's Labour's Lost,

Under the cool shade of a sycamore

I thought to close mine eyes for half an hour-(v., 2),

and can appreciate, in equal measure, the preference felt for this charming tree by Juliet's lover;

Underneath the grove of sycamore

That westward roveth from the city's side,

So early walking did I see your son.

Romeo and Juliet, i., I.

* 66 "Upon a lofty mountain stood a piny wood, by me through many years beloved, embowered with dark-hued firs, and the shady boughs of the sycamore, whither they brought me sacred offerings.” (ix., 85-87.)

There is a trifle of lingering doubt, after all, whether while reading these two passages it would not be better to think of the Plane, the tree of immemorial honour with the ancients in respect of the delightfulness of the shade it offers, and certain to have been known to Shakspere by repute. To this day the sycamore has for its appellation with the scientific, "Pseudo-platanus," or "the mock plane." "Sycamore" itself denoted several different things-the scriptural one, a species of fig;— in Matthiolus, the melia; in Chaucer, in the Flower and the Leaf, some kind of scandent shrub, probably the honeysuckle. There is no reason however to doubt that with Shakspere, if, just possibly, not the Acer Pseudoplatanus, it would unquestionably be the yet nobler tree, Platanus orientalis. No tree, in its general character, is more imposing than the plane. There are loftier trees, and greener ones, and more flowery ones, but few present so large an aggregate of excellent qualities, these latter including a certain air of gentleness and repose, and a capacity for affording a peculiarly agreeable shelter from the heat of the sun, though no tree produces fewer leaves in proportion to the general plenitude of the foliage. The height is ordinarily about seventy feet; the boughs spread widely, but not in disproportion to the altitude; the leaves, individually, resemble those of the vine, but the clefts are much deeper, and the points are remarkably acute. The flowers are borne in globular clusters, these becoming spheres of brown seed, which dangle throughout the winter from the bare branches, as if ready and

waiting to drop to the ground, and present a singular spectacle, the only one of its kind among forest trees. The original species-the Platanus orientalis-appears to have been introduced into this country by Lord Chancellor Verulam. Shakspere may have seen it. In any case the genuine sycamore has no greater claim upon the poets. Mention of the latter is made also in Barbara's "song of willow" (Othello, iv., 3).

Chapter Fifth.

THE WILD-FLOWERS.

Honi soit qui mal y pense, write

In emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue, and white,
Like sapphire, pearl, and rich embroidery,

Merry Wives, v., 5.

S Shakspere's favourite trees were those of the woods in which as a boy he was accustomed to wander, absorbing "sweet influence," so are his wild-flowers those of the Warwickshire meadows, trodden, we may be sure, with equal delight. The green fields around his native village, the quiet lanes, the borders of the pretty streamlets carrying bubbles to the Avon, were their homes. Here it was that he first plucked the "pale primrose," the freckled cowslip and the early daffodil. To people who love him it is a source of perennial enjoyment that in these sweet old sanctuaries