the aid, doubtless, of "fancy, ludicrous and wild," some have traced in these marks a resemblance to various objects. Dr. Plot mentions a dining table made of old ash, on which were depicted divers strange figures of fish, men, and beasts; and an ash tree which grew in Holland, when cleft, discovered the forms of a chalice, a priest's alb and stole, and other pontifical vestments. ever heard of the supposed injury done to butter." Nor is the ash unknown in the materia medica. The ancient Greek, Roman, and Arabian physicians mention the medicinal properties of the keyes or seed, in cases of dropsy, and stone; and a French author has extracted a remedy for the gangrene by macerating the leaves, or putting one end of a truncheon, or branch into the fire, and collecting the sap as it exudes from the other end. A decoction of the leaves and bark has been found valuable as a tonic; and Evelyn states, that the saw-dust has been used for the same purposes as guaiacum. He also tells us, that "the keyes being pickled tender, afford a delicate salading." In Siberia these keyes are infused in water, and said to give it a pleasant flavour, Pity that "The towering ash, the fairest in the woods, For nothing ill, "The warlike ash that reeks with human blood." CHURCHILL. It is not only for its timber that the ash is valuable. No part of it is useless, nor any stage of its growth. In some districts whole coppices are planted with ash, and cut regularly every few years, these cuttings being well adapted for hop poles, cask hoops, rods for training plants, hurdles, etc. It is particularly cultivated in Staffordshire, being the principal wood used in manufacturing the crates in which articles sent from the potteries are packed. Nicol tells us, that "an ash pole, three inches in diameter, is as valuable and durable for any purpose to which it can be applied should be also distinguished as as the timber of the largest tree." The loppings from these coppices, or from the branches of the tree, are excellent for fire-wood, burning even when green; Yet, so it ever has been. Man, fallen it is the principal fuel used in smoking man, perverts the blessings bestowed by dried herrings.* The ashes make good a beneficent Creator on the creatures of potash, and the bark is used in tanning. his hand for other uses than those for The leaves are occasionally used by the which they were given. The very quacountry people as an addition, or substi-lities of this wood, which rendered it so tute for tea. They also serve as fodder for cattle, and were much prized by the Romans for this purpose. A prejudice, in later days prevailed against such food, on the ground that the leaves and shoots of this tree communicate an unpleasant flavour to the milk. This idea, however, is disproved by the recent testimony of a gentleman living in a part of the country where the ash tree abounds. He says, "Much excellent butter is made in this neighbourhood, on farms where it would be impossible to prevent the cows from feeding upon the leaves of the ash; and yet I never met with a farmer's wife, or dairywoman in the neighbourhood, who had "The wood of the ash, when burned in a green state, will emit a fragrance like that which proceeds from the violet or mezereon, and this will diffuse, in particular states of the air, to a considerable distance, a property that, I believe, is not observable in any other British wood. It is in the country only that we can be sensible of this, and it is particularly to be perceived in passing through a village when the cottagers are lighting their fires, or by a farm house, when this wood, fresh cloven or newly lopped off, is burning; as the wood dries, this sweet smell is, in great measure, exhaled with the moisture."-Journal of a Naturalist. valuable for the purposes of which we "On fair levels and a gentle soil, This mighty weapon is thus described, rear. From Pelion's cloudy top, an ash entire Virgil describes his hero as making The shafts of Cupid are said to have been originally made of ash, though afterwards cypress was used. The English name of the tree is supposed to be derived from the Saxon word for pike, œsc. A statute in the reign of Edward IV. commands that every Englishman, residing in Ireland, shall have a bow of yew, wych, ash, or hazel." 66 away before its piercing rays all the clouds of superstition which, in our own country, have enveloped this tree. Evelyn tells us, that in his time, in some parts of the country, an idea prevailed, that by splitting a young ash tree, and passing diseased children through the chasm, a cure would be effected; and a writer in our own days relates an instance, within his own observation, of this extraordinary practice. Another custom still exists, that of boring a hole in this tree, and imprisoning within it a shrew mouse; a few strokes with a branch of this tree is then considered as a sovereign remedy for lameness and other complaints in cattle, which are attributed to the evil influences of the poor little animal! In the midland counties a proverb exists, that if there are no keyes on the ash tree, there will be no king within the twelvemonth. It is customary, in many parts of the Highlands, at the birth of a child, for the nurse to put one end of a green branch of the tree into the fire, and gather the sap which oozes from the other end into a spoon; it is then administered to the infant before it takes any other food. Having thus fully described the beauty and utility of the ash, the reader will not be astonished to find it no less distinguished in the annals of superstition, for the individuals and objects held in the greatest veneration by an enlightened people, are always those by which they have been most benefited. Thus the sun and moon have been, in every age and clime, the objects of pagan worship. The Hindoos pay Divine honours to the shady banian tree, and the North American Indian offers sacrifice to the maize. The Greeks decreed that the man who taught the value of acorns as an article of food should be reverenced as a god, and the islanders of the Pacific worship those individuals whom they regard as their progenitors. To the same natural effects of superstitious feeling we may, no doubt, attribute the high honours with which the ash was regarded. It is remarkable, that the polished Greeks, as well as the unlettered Saxons, derived the human race from this tree. The Edda, or sacred book of the Scandinavian tribes, describes the gods as residing under a mighty ash tree, whose top reached to the heavens, its branches overshadowed the earth, and the roots descended to the infernal regions. An eagle was stationed on the summit, to observe all that passed in the world; and a squirrel was continually ascending and descend-cumference of its branches is one huning to report to it what would otherwise have been unobserved. Several serpents were entwined round the trunk, and from the roots issued two limpid streams, in one of which was concealed wisdom, in the other a knowledge of futurity. Three virgins were continually employed in sprinkling the leaves of the tree with water from these fountains, which, falling upon the earth, became dew. An ancient tradition to which Pliny alludes, mentions that serpents entertain such an extraordinary antipathy to the ash, that they always avoid its shade and would rather creep into a fire than pass over a twig of it. Nor has the general diffusion of the light of knowledge yet chased We have now to notice a few of our native ash trees most distinguished by their size or history. Perhaps one of the finest our island can boast, is that at Woburn Abbey, which, to use the words of Strutt, "is an extraordinary specimen of the size to which this tree will attain, in favourable situations. It is ninety feet high from the ground to the top of its branches, and the stem alone is twenty-eight feet. It is twenty-three and a half feet in circumference at the ground, and fifteen feet three inches at three feet from the ground. The cir dred and thirteen feet in diameter; the measurable timber in the body of the tree is three hundred and forty-three feet, and in the arms and branches, one of which is nine feet in circumference, five hundred and twenty-nine feet." The great ash, at Carnock, in Stirlingshire, is even larger; ninety feet in height, thirty-one feet in circumference at the ground, and twenty-one feet six inches four feet higher. At ten feet from the ground it divides into three large branches, each ten feet in circumference, and one of them is thirty feet in length. It is still in the same state as when delineated by our woodland biographer, "in full vigour and beauty, (though planted in the year 1596 by Sir Thomas Nicholson, lord advocate of Scotland,) combining airy grace in the lightness of its foliage, and the playful ramifications of its smaller branches, with solidity and strength in its silvery stem and principal arms." The Kilmalie ash, growing in a churchyard on the estate of the Lochiel family, in Lochaber, was regarded with great veneration by the whole clan, and probably, on this account, burned by the victorious army in 1746. It must have been of enormous size, for when its ruins were examined in 1764, they measured, as far as could be ascertained, fifty-eight feet in circumference. Those who had been well acquainted with it, described it as not lofty, but dividing into three great arms, at the height of sixty-eight feet from the ground. We cannot, however, wonder at its perfection when we find it was in rich loamy soil, and in the immediate neighbourhood of a small rivulet. The Bonhill ash, in Dumbartonshire, is perhaps as ancient, though not equal in size, to the one of which we have just spoken. At four feet from the ground it exceeds thirty-four feet in circumference, and just below the spot where the trunk divides into three giant arms, it measures nearly twenty-three feet. The trunk is hollow, and has been formed into a small room, eleven feet in height. In the centre is a table, and round it a bench on which eighteen people can sit. Notwithstanding this decay of the centre part, the tree continues to form new wood beneath the bark, and the branches are fresh and vigorous. At Earlsmill, in Morayshire, is another hollow tree, measuring above seventeen feet in girth, at three feet from the ground; within the cavity nine men can stand upright at the same time. In July, 1824, the largest of its mighty branches was broken down by a high wind. Previously to this accident, "nothing could be more grand than its head, which was formed of three enormous limbs, variously subdivided into bold sweeping limbs; but although the ruin, thus created, was sufficiently deplorable, it was strikingly sublime." Nor is the sister island without specimens of the "Ash far spreading its umbrageous arm." At Doniray, near Clare Castle, in the county of Galway, was a tree, that at four feet from the ground, measured | forty-two feet in girth; and at two feet higher, thirty-three feet. The trunk being hollow, it was used for some years as a school-room. Another ash, in King's County, is indeed a noble tree; the trunk, seventeen feet high, before dividing into branches, and almost twentytwo feet in circumference at the base. It is regarded by the peasants with great reverence. When a funeral of the lower class passes it, the custom is to deposit the corpse beneath it for a few minutes, repeat a prayer, and add a stone to an enormous heap around the base, which testifies to the length of time which this superstition has prevailed. Nor must we omit to remark in this tree a renewed proof of the wisdom, as well as bounty, of that glorious Being, "whose tender mercies are over all his works." Those productions, which are most essential to the necessities of the inhabitants of every country, are those which most abound in them. The useful ash" agrees with a greater variety of soil and situation than perhaps any other tree, producing timber of equal value; and, differing from many other trees, its value is increased rather than diminished by the rapidity of its growth." It will alike grow on the bleak mountain summit, within the reach of the sea gale, or on the swampy bog. A loamy soil, however, is that in which it thrives the best, and shelter, and a situation within reach of water, are essential to its attaining perfection. The roots, which are white and fibrous, extend to a great distance under ground, and serve as a subterraneous drain to the surface above. On this account, the tree is frequently planted in low boggy situations, and hence the country proverb, "May your foot-fall be by the root of an ash;" that is, May you have a firm footing. It is to this extension of its roots, which impoverish the soil above them, that we may trace the generally received opinion, that the shade of this tree is injurious to vegetation. It is not to the foliage, but to the fibres of the ash, that we must attribute the fact; but from what we have just observed, it will be seen that this seeming blemish constitutes one of the valuable properties of the tree. Who will presume to charge a fault on the operations of the God of nature? Shall man, short-sighted man, regarding with the glow-worm lamp of fallen reason, the little circle within his ken, venture to ascribe defects to those works which his omniscient Creator pronounced to be "all very good ?" In the economy of nature, no less than that of providence, "Blind unbelief is sure to err, And scan his works in vain." The Christian philosopher will neither censure nor criticize aught that bears the impress of his Father's hand, but receive with gratitude those rays of science which, from time to time, irradiate what has seemed to be mysterious, and wait with humble faith, and patient anticipation, for that period when all shall be revealed; "he shall know even as he is known," and spend the countless ages of eternity, in celebrating the praises of Him who created all things, and for whose pleasure they are and were created." 66 Some have condemned the ash on account of the early falling of its foliage. Instead," says Gilpin, "of contributing its tint, in the wane of the year, among the many coloured offspring of the woods, it shrinks from the blast, drops its leaf, and in each scene where it predominates, leaves wide blanks of desolated boughs." But, granting that the ash is the last of our native trees to expand its leaves in the spring, and the first to lose them in the autumn, shall we exclude its noble and beautiful form from our plantations, because it reminds us of the transient nature of all terrestrial charms? "Like leaves on trees, the race of man is found, Now green in youth, now withering on the ground;" but the brightest and the fairest are ever the first to fade before the chill storms of affliction, or the icy wind of death. The lofty pine is the first to be scathed by the lightning's blast, the rainbow melts away before the cloud, whose gloom it has enlivened, has exhausted its torrent; and the nightingale, the sweetest songster of our feathered choir, is the first to fly the vocal vale. "What is beauty's power? It flourishes, and-dies;" nor can wit or honour, or riches or strength, avert the resistless stroke of death; rather do they seem to offer the fairer marks for his shafts. "Then since this world is vain, And volatile and fleet; Why should we lay up earthly joys, UNDESIGNED COINCIDENCES OF THE twenty-fourth chapter of Genesis contains a very beautiful and primitive picture of eastern manners, in the mission of Abraham's trusty servant to Mesopotamia, to procure a wife for Isaac from the daughters of that branch of the patriarch's family, which continued to dwell in Haran. He came nigh to the city of Nahor; it was the hour when the people were going to draw water. He entreated God to give him a token, whereby he might know which of the damsels of the place he had appointed to Isaac for a wife. "And it came to pass that behold Rebekah came out, who was born to Bethuel, son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham's brother, with a pitcher upon her shoulder". Drink, my lord,” was her greeting, "and I will draw water for thy camels also." This was the simple token which the servant had sought at the hands of God; and accordingly, he proceeds to impart his commission to herself and her friends. To read is to believe this story. But the point in it to which I beg the attention of my readers is this, that Rebekah is said to be "the daughter of Bethuel, the son of Milcah, which she bare unto Nahor." It appears, therefore, that the granddaughter of Abraham's brother is to be the wife of Abraham's son; that is, that a person of the third generation on Nahor's side is found of suitable years for one of the second generation on Abraham's side. Now, what could harmonize more remarkably with a fact elsewhere asserted, though here not even touched upon, that Sarah, the wife of Abraham, was for a long time barren, and had no child till she was stricken in years? Gen. xviii. 12. Thus it was that a generation on Abraham's side was lost, and the grandchildren of his brother in Haran were the coevals of his own to have been a conspicuous person in this contract of his daughter's marriage. For there was nothing in the custom of the country to warrant the apparent indifference in the party most nearly concerned, which we observe in Bethuel. Laban was of the same country and placed in circumstances somewhat similar; he too had to dispose of a daughter in marriage, and that daughter also, like Rebekah, had brothers, Gen. xxxi. 1; yet in this case, the terms of the contract were stipulated, as was reasonable, by the father alone; he was the active child in Canaan. I must say that this trifling instance of minute consistency gives me very great confidence in the veracity of the historian. It is an incidental point in the narrative, most easily overlooked-I am free to confess, never observed by myself till I examined the Pentateuch with a view to this species of internal evidence. It is a point on which he might have spoken differently, and yet not have excited the smallest suspicion that he was speaking inaccurately. Suppose he had said that Abraham's son had taken for a wife the daughter of Nahor, instead of the grand-person throughout. But mark the difdaughter, who would have seen in this any thing improbable? and to a mere inventor would not that alliance have been much the more likely to suggest itself? Now here, again, the ordinary and extraordinary are so closely united, that it is extremely difficult indeed to put them asunder. If, then, the ordinary circumstances of the narrative have the impress of truth, the extraordinary have a very valid right to challenge our serious consideration too. If the coincidence almost establishes this as a certain fact, which I think it does, that Sarah did not bear Isaac while she was young, agreeably to what Moses affirms; is it not probable that the same historian is telling the truth when he says, that Isaac was born when Sarah was too old to bear him at all except by miracle? when he says, that the Lord announced his future birth, and ushered him into the world by giving him a name foretelling the joy he should be to the nations; changing the names of both his parents with a prophetic reference to the high destinies this son was appointed to fulfil ? Indeed, the more attentively and scrupulously we examine the Scriptures, the more shall we be (in my opinion) convinced, that the natural and supernatural events recorded in them must stand or fall together. The spirit of miracles possesses the entire body of the Bible, and cannot be cast out without rending in pieces the whole frame of the history itself, merely considered as a history. There is another indication of truth in this same portion of patriarchal story. It is this-The consistent insignificance of Bethuel in this whole affair. Yet he was alive, and as the father of Rebekah was likely, it might have been thought, ference in the instance of Bethuel: whether he was incapable from years or imbecility to manage his own affairs, it is of course impossible to say; but something of this kind seems to be implied in all that relates to him. Thus, when Abraham's servant meets with Rebekah at the well, he inquires of her, "Whose daughter art thou; tell me, I pray thee, is there room in thy father's house for us to lodge in ?" Gen. xxiv. 23. She answers, that she is the daughter of Bethuel, and that there is room; and when he thereupon declared, who he was and whence he came, "the damsel ran and told them of her mother's house" (not of her father's house, as Rachel did when Jacob introduced himself, Gen. xxix. 12.) "these things." This might be accident; but "Rebekah had a brother," the history continues, and "his name was Laban, and Laban ran out unto the man" and invited him in, Gen. xxiv. 29. Still we have no mention of Bethuel. The servant now explains the nature of his errand, and in this instance it is said, that Laban and Bethuel answered, Gen. xxiv. 50. Bethuel being here in this passage, which constitutes the sole proof of his being alive, coupled with his son as the spokesman. It is agreed, that she shall go with the man, and he now makes his presents, but to whom? "Jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and_raiment, he gave to Rebekah." He also gave, we are told, "to her brother and to her mother precious things," Gen. xxiv. 53. but not it seems to her father; still Bethuel is overlooked, and he alone. It is proposed that she shall tarry a few days before she departs. And by whom is this proposal made? Not by her father, the most natural person surely to have been the principal throughout this whole affair; but "by her brother |