the reader what may be said on the other side of the question, in the words of Mr. Miller, who has done me the favour to communicate the following observations.

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"The ancients used two different "methods of grafting: the first is "by approach; the other is what "the gardeners term clift-grafting. "It is the former method which "Columella has described, where "he directs the stock, on which the "graft is to be inserted, to be planted so near the tree designed "to be propagated, as that the "branches may be drawn down, " and inserted in the stock, without being cut from the parent tree: "for he directs the letting it remain "two years before it is separated. "As to the different kinds of trees, "which are mentioned by the poet, "to be ingrafted on each other, I "dare affirm it was never practised "in any country: so that we must "either suppose the trees, which now pass under the same appellation, to be different from those "known at that time under such names, or that it is a licence taken by the poet to embellish his poem. "What Columella has said to con"firm this, is no more than what

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we find in most books of hus66 'bandry, both ancient and modern; "in which the authors have too frequently spent more time in explaining what they supposed "mysteries, than in relating the practice of the most experienced "husbandmen. For suppose these things were practicable, there "could no advantage arise from it "to the practitioner, and it would "be only a matter of curiosity, "to see the stock of one kind supporting a tree of a very different one. But all these sorts of trees

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"have been tried on each other, "not only in England, but also in Italy, and from all the different "experiments which have been 66 made, it is found that no trees of 66 a different kind will take on each "other. In several books of gar"dening and husbandry, we find "directions how to ingraft one sort "of tree on another of any kind; "which is to plant the stock near "the tree from which the cion is to "be taken, and when the stock is sufficiently rooted, then you must "draw down a young branch of the cr tree, and insert it into the stock as near the ground as possible: "then the earth is ordered to be "laid round the stock above the

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place where it was grafted. In "this state they were to remain "until the second or third year, "when they should be cut off from "the parent-tree. By this method "I have known a pear-tree grafted on a cabbage stalk, but the stock

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was of no use to the graft: for "the cion put out roots whereby it "maintained itself. But these being "little better than jugglers' tricks, "were never practised by persons " of experience."

69. Ex.] In one of the Arundelian manuscripts it is et.

Ibid. Nucis.] See the note on ver. 187. of the first Georgick.

Ibid. Arbutus.] See the note on ver. 148. of the first Georgick.

Ibid. Horrida.] It is horrens in the King's, and both Dr. Mead's manuscripts.

Ruæus thinks that arbutus has the epithet horrida, on account of the fewness of the leaves: I rather believe it is because of the ruggedness of its bark. Servius seems to take it in this sense: "horrida "autem hispida," says he. The

beeches, and the mountain

ash has been hoary with the white

branches also of the arbute are very unequal, which the poet seems to express in the numbers of this verse. Mr. B- takes the arbutus to be our crab-tree: and nux to be the filberd:

But filberds graft on th' horrid crab-tree's

brows.

70. Steriles platani malos gessere valentes.] The Platanus is our oriental Plane-tree, without all question. Dionysius the geographer compares the form of the Morea, or ancient Peloponnesus, to the leaves of this tree, making the footstalk to be the isthmus, by which it is joined to Greece:

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Πέλοπος δ ̓ ἐπὶ νῆσος ὁπηδεῖ, Ειδομένη πλατάνοιο μυουρίζοντι πετήλῳ. Ακρῳ μὲν γὰρ ἔοικεν ἐεργόμενος σενὸς ἰσθμὸς, Πρὸς βορέην, καὶ κοινὸν ἐφ ̓ Ἑλλάδος ἴχνος ἐρείδων

Φύλλῳ δ' ἤπειρος περιδινήτῳ περίμετρος, Κόλποις εἰναλίοις εςημμένη ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα.

"

Pliny also says that the Peloponnesus is shaped, by the number of its bays, like a plane leaf: "Platani "folio similis, propter angulosos recessus. To illustrate this similitude, which is as just as we can expect in any thing of this nature, I have added a figure of the Peloponnesus, and of a leaf of a planetree. The Platanus is so called from alus broad, on account of the remarkable breadth of its leaves. Pliny tells us this tree was first brought over the Ionian sea, into the island of Diomedes, for a monument for that hero: thence into Sicily, and so into Italy. "Sed quis non jure miretur arborem "umbræ gratia tantum ex alieno petitam orbe? Platanus hæc est, per mare Ionium in Diomedis in"sulam ejusdem tumuli gratia pri"mum invecta, inde in Siciliam

"transgressa, atque inter primas "donata Italiæ." It seems the ancients had so profuse a veneration for this tree as to irrigate it with wine; thus Pliny: Tantumque postea honoris increvit, ut mero "infuso enutriantur: compertum "id maxime prodesse radicibus, "docuimusque etiam arbores vina potare." The poet calls the plane barren, because it bears no fruit that is eatable.

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71. Castanea fagos.] The commentators differ greatly about the reading of this passage. Servius reads castanea fagos, but thinking it absurd that a barren beech, as he calls it, should be ingrafted on a fruitful chesnut, he fancies either that it is a hypallage, so that Castanea fagos is for fagi castaneas: or else that we must make a stop at castanea, taking it for the genitive case after malos; and making fagos the nominative case with a Greek termination, this and the preceding verse being to be read thus:

Et steriles platani malos gessere valentes
Castaneæ: fagos, ornusque incanuit, &c.

The first of these interpretations is such, that, I believe, to mention it is to confute it. The second interpretation is not without its follow

ers.

Pierius says he has seen cas tanea marked for the genitive case, in some ancient copies: and Ascensius, as he is quoted by Ruæus, contends for this reading. He takes malos to signify, not appletrees, but masts: so that the sense will be, according to this critic, Plane-trees have borne such strong branches of chesnuts, that they seem to be masts of ships: but this, as Ruæus justly observes, is too harsh. Others, says Servius, like neither of these interpretations, but make

castanea the genitive case after flore, and read fagus in the nominative case singular. Thus it will be, "the beech has been hoary with "the blossoms of chesnuts, and the mountain ash with those of the "pear-tree." Ruæus follows this interpretation, and Mr. B——

Thus chesnut plumes on beech surprise the sight,

And hornbeam blows with pear-tree flowers all white.

Grimoaldus reads castanea fagos, and thinks the poet means a wild sort of chesnuts, for he paraphrases it "in castanea sylvestri fagum." La Cerda contends that it should be read castaneas fagus, making fagus the nominative case plural, like laurus, platanus, myrtus, which are found in some old copies. Dryden seems to have read castaneas fagus:

Thus mastful beech the bristly chesnut bears.

Dr. Trapp also highly approves of this reading: "I entirely agree," says he, "with those who read castanens fagus, or castanea fagus, "in Abramus's sense, [see Ruæus;] "not castanea fagos. Nobody in "his wits would graft a beech upon "a chesnut." His translation is according to this latter sense:

Chesnuts bloom'd on beech.

For my part I see no reason to reject the common reading, castanea fagos. Thus Pierius found it in the Medicean manuscript: and thus I find it in all the seven manuscripts, which I have collated. The commentators have been induced to alter the text, on a supposition, that chesnuts were esteemed, in Virgil's time, as much superior to beech-mast, as they are now the

swine have crunched acorns under elms.

postea balanum nomen imposuit, "excellentioribus satu factis." The mast of the beech was reckoned a very sweet nut, and men are said to have been sustained by it in a siege. "Dulcissima omnium fagi," says Pliny, ut qua

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obsessos etiam «homines durasse in oppido Chio, "tradat Cornelius Alexander." This tree was held in great veneration by the Romans, vessels made of it were used in their sacrifices, and the mast was used by them in medicine. Hence I see no reason to doubt that Virgil meant the ingrafting a beech on a chesnut: though with us, who prefer the chesnut, this practice would be absurd.

71. Ornusque incanuit albo flore Pyri.] What the Romans called Ornus seems to be the Sorbus aucuparia or Quicken-tree, which grows in mountainous places; not only in Italy, but in many parts, especially the northern counties, of England, where it is commonly called the Mountain Ash. Columella says the Ornus is a wild sort of Ash, and that its leaves are broader than those of the other species: "Sed si aspera et siticulosa loca arboribus "obserenda erunt, neque Opulus, neque Ulmus tam idoneae sunt

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