CHAP. CXill.

conVfeiue. CUPRE'SSUS.

2473

“ Beneath whose widely wasting breathThe very cypress droops to death :

Dark tree! still sad when others’grief is fled,

The only constant mourner of the dead.”

Sir Walter Scott’s ballad in Iiolceby is well known : —

“ Oh, lady ! twine no wreath for me,

Or twine it of the cypress tree.

Too lively glow the lilies light,

The varnish’d holly’s all too bright;

Tide mayflower and the eglantineMay shade a brow less sad than mine :

But, lady, weave no wreath for me,

Or weave it of the cypress tree.”

Properties and Uses. The wood of the cypress, as we have already seen,was much used by the ancients for all purposes which required durability;and Horace says that whatever they thought worthy of being handed downto the most remote posterity was preserved in the wood of that tree, or of thecedar. It was occasionally used for building; and the bridge thrown by Semira-mis over the Euphrates is supposed to have been built of it. The Romans usedthe wood of the wild, or spreading, cypress, which they called citron wood, forbeds and tables; and it was highly esteemed for its numerous spots and figures,from which the tables made of it were called menscc tigrince et pantherince. It wasused in the funeral ceremonies; and, when any one was dead, it was placed atthe door, or in the vestibule of the house in which the body lay. Evelynenumerates many purposes to which the wood of the cypress was applied:— “ What the uses of this timber are for chests and other utensils, harps, anddivers other musical instruments (it being a sonorous wood, and therefore em-ployed for organ-pipes, as heretofore for supporters of vines, poles, and planks,resisting the worm, moth, and all putrefaction, to eternity), the Venetians suffi-ciently understod, who did every twentieth year, and oftener (the Romans every

thirteenth), make a considerable revenue of it out of Candy (Candia).

But there was in Candy a vast wood of these trees, belonging to the republic, bymalice or accident, or, perhaps, by solar heat (as were many woods, 74 yearsafter,here in England), set on fire; which,beginning 1400,continued burning7 years before it could be extinguished; being fed by the unctuous nature of thetimber, of which there were to be seen at Venice planks above 4 ft. broad.”Evelyn adds that the chips were used to flavour rich wines; that the conesand chips burnt, will destroy and drive away moths, gnats, and flies; andthat it yields a gum not much inferior to mastic. The tree is not found ofsufficient size, or in sufficient quantities, for the wood to be employed astimber at the present day; but it is said to be still used for building in Candia andMalta; and it is employed as the inner coffin, or shell, for burying the popes,there being also a coffin of lead, and an outer one of pine or fir. DuHamel says that he had the fence of his melon-ground made with posts ofcypress, which, at the time he wrote, had been 25 years in the ground, andwere still quite fresh. He recommends trees of 7 in. or 8 in. in diameter forforming palisades for the defence of fortified towns during war, and for otherservices of a similar kind, where oak of the same dimensions does not lastabove 7 or 8 years. The young branches of the cypress make, he says, excel-lent props for vines ; and, doubtless, the young shoots in England would makevery durable props for supporting plants. In Britain, however, the cypressis only to be regarded as an ornamental tree, and it is one of the mostremarkable belonging to that class, the future growth and shape of whichmay be predicted with tolerable certainty. The planter of an oak, an ash,or an elm, can never tell, till the tree is full grown, whether it will have awidely spreading, or a tall erect, head ; but the planter of the spruce or silverfir, or of the Lombardy poplar or evergreen cypress, can predict with certaintythat the form will be conical; and he may estimate the size and shape of the cy-press, in a given time, with more exactness than he can that of any of the others.Like other trees of narrow conical forms, such as the Lombardy poplar, or eventhe spruce fir and the larch, the cypress is not calculated to produce a grandeffect when planted in masses; but in rows, singly, under certain circum-