Chatterton poetically describes autumn as
"Wyth hys goulde honde guylteynge the falleynge lefe."
Many writers have touched upon the difference in the colours of trees:
"Nor less attractive is the woodland scene,
Diversified with trees of
Alike, yet various. Here the gray smooth trunks
Of ash, or lime, or beech, distinctly shine
Within the twilight of their distant shades;
There, lost behind a rising ground, the wood
Seems sunk, and shortened to its topmost boughs.
No tree in all the grove but has its charms,
Though each its hue peculiar, paler some,
And of a wannish gray; the willow such,
And poplar that with silver lines his leaf,
And ash, far-stretching his umbrageous arm;
Of deeper green the elm; and deeper still,
Lord of the woods, the long-surviving oak.
Some glossy leaved, and shining in the sun,
The maple, and the beech of oily nuts
Prolific, and the lime at dewy eve
Diffusing odours: nor unnoted pass
The sycamore, capricious in attire,
Now green, now tawny, and ere autumn yet
Have changed the woods, in scarlet honours bright."
Surely the poet takes some licence, in calling the
"Below me trees unnumber'd rise,
Beautiful in various dyes:
The gloomy pine, the poplar blue;
The yellow beech, the sable yew,
The slender fir that taper grows,
The sturdy oak with broad-spread boughs.”
DYER'S Grongar Hill.
"Here rise no cliffs the vale to shade,
But, skirting every sunny glade,
In fair variety of green,
The woodland lends its sylvan screen.
Hoary, yet haughty, frowns the oak,
Its boughs by weight of ages broke;
And towers erect in sable spire
The pine-tree, scathed by lightning fire;
The drooping ash and birch between
Hang their fair tresses o'er the green;
And all beneath at random grow
Each coppice dwarf of varied show ;
Or round the stems profusely twin'd,
Fling summer odours on the wind.”
Prior represents Solomon seeking knowledge of the learned, at once confessing his ignorance on subjects he is supposed to understand, and expressing his desire to be informed:
"The vegetable world, each plant and tree,
Its seed, its name, its nature, its degree,
I am allowed, as Fame reports, to know,
From the fair cedar on the craggy brow
Of Lebanon, nodding supremely tall,
To creeping moss, and hyssop on the wall:
Yet, just and conscious to myself, I find
A thousand doubts oppose the searching mind.
I know not why the beech delights the glade
With boughs extended, and a rounder shade, {
Whilst towering firs in conic forms arise,
And with a pointed spear divide the skies;
Nor why again the changing oak should shed
The yearly honour of his stately head;
Whilst the distinguish'd yew is ever seen,
Unchanged his branch, and permanent his green.
Wanting the sun, why does the caltha fade?
Why does the cypress flourish in the shade?
The fig, and date, why love they to remain
In middle station, and an even plain,
While in the lower marsh the gourd is found,
And while the hill with olive shade is crown'd?
Why does one climate and one soil endue
The blushing poppy with a crimson hue,
Yet leave the lily pale, and tinge the violet blue?
Why does the fond carnation love to shoot
A various colour from one parent root;
While the fantastic tulip strives to break
In twofold beauty and a parted streak ;
The twining jasmine, and the blushing rose,
With lavish grace their morning scents disclose;
The smelling tuberose and jonquil declare
The stronger impulse of an evening air?
Whence has the tree (resolve me), or the flower,
A various instinct, or a different power?
Why should one earth, one clime, one stream, one breath,
Raise this to strength, and sicken that to death?
Whence does it happen that the plant which well
We name the sensitive, should move and feel?>
Whence know her leaves to answer her command,
And with quick horror fly the approaching hand?"
The learned could not answer these inquiries; neither could they have explained why certain plants are so choice in the selection of their friends, that they will turn from such as do not please them. We cannot suppose this to be without reason: plants are too amiable to indulge in causeless antipathies.
"On pretend encore," says the Abbé Barthelemy, "que certains arbres ont une influence marquée sur d'autres arbres; que les oliviers se plaisent dans le voisinage des grenadiers sauvages, et les grenadiers des jardins dans celui des myrtes *."
They say, too, that certain trees have a marked influence on others; that olive trees delight in the neighbourhood of the wild pomegranate, and that garden pomegranates delight in that of myrtles."
"Everlasting hate
The vine to ivy bears, nor less abhors
The colewort's rankness; but with amorous twine
Clasps the tall elm: the Postan rose unfolds
Her bud more lovely near the fetid leek
(Crest of stout Britons), and enhances thence
The price of her celestial scent: the gourd
And thirsty cucumber, when they perceive
Th' approaching olive, with resentment fly
Her fatty fibres, and with tendrils creep
Diverse, detesting contact; whilst the fig
Contemns not rue, nor sage's humble leaf,
Close neighbouring: th' Herefordian plant
Caresses freely the contiguous peach,
Hazel, and weight-resisting palm, and likes
T'approach the quince, and the elder's pithy stem;
Uneasy, seated by funereal yew,
Or walnut (whose malignant touch impairs
All generous fruits), or near the bitter dews
Of cherries."
It is less a matter of surprise that men should not be able to explain these things, than that they should know so much as they do on these subjects; and that they should be able, in some instances, to improve upon nature herself.
"Et sæpe alterius ramos impune videmus
Vertere in alterius, mutatamque insita mala
Ferre pyrum, et prunis lapidosa rubescere corna.
Inseritur verò ex fœtu nucis arbutus horrida,
Et steriles platani malos gessere valentes,
Castanea fagos, ornusque incanuit albo
Flore pyri, glandemque sues fregere sub ulmis.
Nec modus inserere, atque oculos imponere simplex.
Nam quà se medio tradunt de cortice gemmæ,
Et tenues rumpunt tunicas, angustus in ipso
Fit nodo sinus: huc aliena ex arbore germen
Includunt, udóque docent inolescere libro.
Aut rursum enodes trunci resecantur, et altè
Finditur in solidum cuneis via; deinde feraces
Plantæ immittuntur: nec longum tempus, et ingens
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