Ill

OF FOREST-TREES.

corn was found out, were heretofore the food of men, nay, of Jupiter chap. hi.himself, as well as other productions of the earth, till their luxuriouspalates were debauched: and even in the time of the Romans, thecustom was in Spain, to make a second service of acorns and mast, asthe French now do of marrons and chesnuts, which they likewise usedto roast under the embers :

.-- — ct querna glande repasta

Equafse annosas vivendo corpora quercus.

-Fed with the oaken mast,.

The aged trees themselves in years surpafs’d.

And men had indeed hearts of Oak 5 I mean, not so hard, but healthand strength, and lived naturally, .and with things easily parable andplain.

Fa’lix ilia actas mundi, justifsima Nymphe,

Cum dabat umbra domum vlvam tua, cum domus ipsaX)ecidu& dominos pascebat fruge quietos,

Solaque praebebant sylvestria poma secundasGramineis epulas mensis; nondum arte magistra

Arbor adulteriis praetulerat insita nostris. Couleii PI, I. vi. .

Blest age o’ th’ world, just nymph, when man did dwellUnder thy shade whence his provision fell;

Salads the meal, wildings were the desert;

No tree yet learned, by ill example, art,

With insititious fruit, to symbolize;

As in an emblem, our adulteries.

Thus the sweet poet bespeaks the Dryad. But it is in another place * * Ch,i, B. ir.where I show you what this acorn was. And even now I am told, thatthose small young acorns which we find in the stock-doves’ craws area delicious fare, as well as those incomparable salads, young herbstaken out of the maws of partridges at a certain season of the year,which gives them a. preparation far. exceeding all the art of cookery.—

Oaks bear also a knur, full of a cottony matter, of which they antientlymade wick for their lamps and candles; and among the SelectioraRemedia of Jo. Pnevotius, there is mention of an oil £ querna glandechymically extracted, which he affirms to be of the longest continuance^and least consumptive of any other whatsoever for such lights, ita at unciaSingulis mensibus vix absumatur cantinuo igne. The ingenious author