2416

ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM.

PART III.

Lucan speaks of it as the breeding-place of the eagle; and Horace hopesthat his verses will be as lasting as its wood.

Among the British poets, Spenser thus describes a cedar: —

“ High on a hill a goodly cedar grew,

Of wond’rous length and straight proportion,

That far abroad her dainty odours threw,

’Mongst all the daughters of proud Lebanon, ”

Churchill says,—

“ The cedar, whose top motes the highest cloud,

Whilst his old father Lebanon grows proudOf such a child, and his vast body, laidOut many a mile, enjoys the filial shade.”

Mason describes the cedar as spreading: —

—— “ Cedars here

Coeval with the sky-crown’d mountain’s self,

Spread wide their giant arms.”

Thomson gives a beautiful picture:—

— “ On some fair browLet us behold, by breezy summers cool’d,

Broad o’er our heads the verdant cedar wave.”

Shakspeare’s lines on the fall of Warwick are well known : —

** Thus yields the cedar to the axe’s edge,

Whose arms gave shelter to the princely eagle,

Under whose shade the ramping lion slept,

Whose top branch overpeer’d Jove’s spreading tree,

And kept low shrubs from winter’s powerful wind.”

Third Part of Henry VI. , act v. sc. 3.

In the last scene of Henry VIII., Cranmer says, speaking of James I. ,—

- ** He shall flourish,

And, like a mountain cedar, reach his branchesTo all the plains about him.”

Shakspeare makes several other allusions to the cedar. Drayton calls it“ the tufted cedar;” and Fairfax, “the proud cedar.” Spenser also calls it“ the cedar proud and tall;” and Sir Philip Sydney terms it “ queene of thewoods.”

Many allusions to this tree are also found among the modern poets:—

-On high the cedar

Stoops, like a monarch to his people bending,

And casts his sweets around.” Barry Cornwall .

“ Down in a vale, where lucid waters play’d,

And mountain cedars stretch’d their downward shade.” Montgomery.

The following lines from Southey allude to the power supposed to be possessedby the cedar of freeing itself from the snow. (See p. 2410.)

-“ It was a cedar tree

That woke him from the deadly drowsiness;

Its broad round-spreading branches, when they feltThe snow, rose upward in a point to heaven,

And, standing in their strength erect,

Defied the baffled storm. ” Thalabe.

Moore says, —

** Now upon Syria ’s land of rosesSoftly the light of eve reposes,

And, like a glory, the broad sun .

Hangs over sainted Lebanon .” Paradise and the Pet*'

“ As Lebanon ’s small mountain floodIs render’d holy by the ranks

Of sainted cedars on its banks 1 ” Lalla Rookh ♦

The following verses of Racine are so well known, and so much admired, inFrance , that we quote them:—

“ J’ai vu l’impie adore sur la terre :

Pareil au cfedre, il cachait dans les cieuxSon front audacieux j

II semblait k son gre gouverner le tonnerre,

Foulait aux pieds ses ennemis vaincus :

Je n’ai fait que passer, il n’etait deji plus.”