Sir Philip Sidney’s Oak at Penshurst mentioned by Ben Jonson—­

    That taller tree, of which the nut was set
    At his great birth, where all the Muses met—­

is still in existence.  It is thirty feet in circumference.  Waller also alludes to

    Yonder tree which stands the sacred mark
    Of noble Sidney’s birth.

Yardley Oak, immortalized by Cowper, is now in a state of decay.

    Time made thee what thou wert—­king of the woods! 
    And time hath made thee what thou art—­a cave
    For owls to roost in.

Cowper.

The tree is said to be at least fifteen hundred years old.  It cannot hold its present place much longer; but for many centuries to come it will

    Live in description and look green in song.

It stands on the grounds of the Marquis of Northampton; and to prevent people from cutting off and carrying away pieces of it as relics, the following notice has been painted on a board and nailed to the tree:—­“Out of respect to the memory of the poet Cowper, the Marquis of Northampton is particularly desirous of preserving this Oak.”

Lord Byron, in early life, planted an oak in the garden at Newstead and indulged the fancy, that as that flourished so should he.  The oak has survived the poet, but it will not outlive the memory of its planter or even the boyish verses which he addressed to it.

Pope observes, that “a tree is a nobler object than a prince in his coronation robes.”  Yet probably the poet had never seen any tree larger than a British oak.  What would he have thought of the Baobab tree in Abyssinia, which measures from 80 to 120 feet in girth, and sometimes reaches the age of five thousand years.  We have no such sylvan patriarch in Europe.  The oldest British tree I have heard of, is a yew tree of Fortingall in Scotland, of which the age is said to be two thousand five hundred years.  If trees had long memories and could converse with man, what interesting chapters these survivors of centuries might add to the history of the world!

Pope was not always happy in his Twickenham Paradise.  His rural delights were interrupted for a time by an unrequited passion for the beautiful and highly-gifted but eccentric Lady Mary Wortley Montague.

    Ah! friend, ’tis true—­this truth you lovers know;
    In vain my structures rise, my gardens grow;
    In vain fair Thames reflects the double scenes
    Of hanging mountains and of sloping greens;
    Joy lives not here, to happier seats it flies,
    And only dwells where Wortley casts her eyes.

    What are the gay parterre, the chequered shade,
    The morning bower, the evening colonnade,
    But soft recesses of uneasy minds,
    To sigh unheard in to the passing winds?

    So the struck deer, in some sequestered part,
    Lies down to die, the arrow at his heart;
    He, stretched unseen, in coverts hid from day,
    Bleeds drop by drop, and pants his life away.