I may here mention that in the Vale of Avoca there is a tree celebrated as that under which Thomas Moore wrote the verses entitled “The meeting of the Waters.”

The allusion to Pope’s Oak reminds me that Chaucer is said to have planted three oak trees in Donnington Park near Newbury.  Not one of them is now, I believe, in existence.  There is an oak tree in Windsor Forest above 1000 years old.  In the hollow of this tree twenty people might be accommodated with standing room.  It is called King’s Oak:  it was William the Conqueror’s favorite tree. Herne’s Oak in Windsor Park, is said by some to be still standing, but it is described as a mere anatomy.

    ——­An old oak whose boughs are mossed with age,
    And high top bald with dry antiquity.

As You Like it.

“It stretches out its bare and sapless branches,” says Mr. Jesse, “like the skeleton arms of some enormous giant, and is almost fearful in its decay.” Herne’s Oak, as every one knows, is immortalised by Shakespeare, who has spread its fame over many lands.

    There is an old tale goes that Herne the hunter,
    Sometime a keeper here in Windsor Forest,
    Doth all the winter time, at still midnight,
    Walk round about an oak, with great ragg’d horns,
    And there he blasts the trees, and takes the cattle;
    And makes milch cows yield blood, and shakes a chain
    In a most hideous and dreadful manner. 
    You have heard of such a spirit; and well you know,
    The superstitious, idle-headed eld
    Received, and did deliver to our age,
    This tale of Herne the Hunter for a truth.

Merry Wives of Windsor.

“Herne, the hunter” is said to have hung himself upon one of the branches of this tree, and even,

    ——­Yet there want not many that do fear,
    In deep of night to walk by this Herne’s Oak.

Merry Wives of Windsor.

It was not long ago visited by the King of Prussia to whom Shakespeare had rendered it an object of great interest.

It is unpleasant to add that there is considerable doubt and dispute as to its identity.  Charles Knight and a Quarterly Reviewer both maintain that Herne’s Oak was cut down with a number of other old trees in obedience to an order from George the Third when he was not in his right mind, and that his Majesty deeply regretted the order he had given when he found that the most interesting tree in his Park had been destroyed.  Mr. Jesse, in his Gleanings in Natural History, says that after some pains to ascertain the truth, he is convinced that this story is not correct, and that the famous old tree is still standing.  He adds that George the Fourth often alluded to the story and said that though one of the trees cut down was supposed to have been Herne’s Oak, it was not so in reality.  George the Third, it is said, once called the attention of Mr. Ingalt, the manager of Windsor Home Park to a particular tree, and said “I brought you here to point out this tree to you.  I commit it to your especial charge; and take care that no damage is ever done to it.  I had rather that every tree in the park should be cut down than that this tree should be hurt. This is Hernes Oak.”