subdued verdure of the upper sides of these: whereas in walking in a grove of tall trees, though the local colour of the foliage may be quite as sombre as that of the olive, yet the transmitted light is much brighter and gayer, from partaking only of the true green of the leaves."

But if such be the appearance of this tree in nature, under the alchymical touch of poetry it looks all that the untravelled have ever imagined it. How beautifully is it introduced into this Spanish landscape !—

“In such an hour

The vesper melody of dying bells

Wanders through Spain from each grey convent's tower,

O'er shining rivers pour'd, and olive dells."

Here is another picture by the same gifted pencil, and from the same bright realm:

"Here the eye roves through slender colonnades.

O'er bowery terraces and myrtle shades;

Dark olive woods beyond, and far on high

The vast sierra mingling with the sky.”

From the pen of Southey we have the following glowing description:

And stately piles which crown'd its margin, rich

With olives and with sunny slopes of vines,

And many a lovely hamlet interspers'd,

Whose citron bowers were once the abode of peace,

Height above height, receding hills were seen
Imbued with evening hues."

These are Spanish scenes; but now the muse leads us to another land, where we still keep the olive in view; for lo!

"Arno wins us to the fair white walls, Where the Etrurian Athens claims and keeps

A softer feeling for her fairy halls.

Girt by her theatre of hills, she reaps

Her corn, and wine, and oil, and Plenty leaps

To laughing life with her redundant horn."

"In such a world,- so thorny," so full of jarring interests and conflicting passions, how sweet is any thing which breathes of peace! It is for this we love the olive. "They who rejoice when their corn, and their wine, and their oil are increased," will delight in it as the symbol of plenty; but the meek and gentle-hearted,

the wounded in spirit, will love it best as the harbinger

of peace.

I would not, if I might,

Child of my heart! the hidden page unseal,
That would thy future destiny reveal.

How should I shrink aghast

To see fierce passions glass'd

On that fair brow, which feels as yet no blight!
Enough to know that often thou must stray,
With sackcloth round thee spread,

And ashes on thy head,

A weeping pilgrim on life's weary way.

Oh! rather let me pray, when bursts the cloud

When deep to deep is calling long and loud,

That He, the heavenly Dove,

With healing wing would move

Upon these troubled waters of the soul,

Hushing their turbulence with sweet controul;

And when the storm has work'd His will who gave
Strength to the wind and fury to the wave,

He, like the bird which told the flood's decrease,
Would yield to thee at last like pledge of love and peace.

Oh! were it mine to choose from earthly bower
Aught that might shape, with talismanic power,

Thy future path, not Beauty's type- the rose —
Should tempt my hand, because 'mid thorns it grows;
Nor myrtle's lovelorn spray,

Child of my heart! I gladly would resign,

If but that richer boon sweet peace

be thine.

What would I more? If but to thee be given

The olive-bough on earth, the conqueror's palm in

heaven!

THE BAY AND PALM.

THE BAY.

LAURUS NOBILIS.

“The laurel, meed of mighty conquerors
And poets sage."

THE Laurus Nobilis, or sweet bay, though but a shrub in our country, in Asia and the southern parts of Europe, its proper birthplace, attains to the height of twenty or thirty feet. It grows very freely on the banks of the river Peneus in Thessaly; and hence, perhaps, the fable of the metamorphosis of Daphne, daughter of that river. It also, with classic propriety, adorns mounts Ida and Athos. There has long been some confusion between the laurel and the bay *; the

Gray (the poet) observes and corrects an error on this subject. Speaking of a work he had just been reading, he says, the author "fancies the Roman laurus to be our laurel; though it is undoubtedly the bay-tree, which is odoratum, and, I believe, still called Lauro or Alloro at Rome."