The following is an account of a Remarkable Oak Tree : Behold the oak does young and verdant stand

Above the grove, all others to command ;

His wide-extended limbs the forest crown'd,

Shading the trees, as well as they the ground:

Young murm'ring tempests in his boughs are bred,

And gathering clouds from round his lofty head;

Outrageous thunder, stormy winds, and rain,

Discharge their fury on his head in vain;

Earthquakes below, and lightnings from above,

Reml not his trunk, nor his fix'd root remove. Blackmore.

Mr. Gilpin, in his forest scenery, gives the following account of an aged oak :"Close by the sate of the Water-walk, at Magdalen College in Oxford, grew an oak, which perhaps stood there a saplin when Alfred the Great founded the university. This period only includes a space of nine hundred years, which is no great age for an oak. It is a difficult matter indeed to ascertain the age of a tree. The age of a castle or abbey is the object of history: even a common house is recorded by the family that built it. All these objects arrive at maturity in their youth, if I may so speak. But the tree gradually completing its growth, is not worth recording in the early part of its existence: it is then only a common tree; and afterwards, when it. becomes remarkable for its age, all memory of its youth is lost. This tree, however, can almost produce historical evidence for the age assigned to it."

About five hundred years after the time of Alfred, William of Wainfleet, Dr. Stukely tells us, expressly ordered this college to be founded near the great oak; (Itiner. Curios.) and an oak could not, 1 think, be less than five hundred years of age, to merit that title, together with the honour of fixing the site of a college. When the magnificence of Cardinal Wolsey erected that handsome tower which is so ornamental to the whole building, this tree might probably be in the meridian of its glory; or rather, perhaps it had attained a green old age. But it must have been manifestly in its decline, at that memorable aera, when the tyranny of James gave the fellows of Magdalen so noble an opportunity of withstanding bigotry and superstition. It was afterwards much injured in the time of Charles II, when the present walks were laid out: its roots were disturbed; and from that period it declined fast, and became reduced by degrees to little more than a mere trunk The oldest members of the university can scarcely recollect it in better plight: but the faithful records of history* have handed down its ancient dimensions.

It once flung its boughs through a space of sixteen yards on every side from its trunk; and under its magnificent pavilion could have sheltered with ease three thousand men: though in its decayed state, it could, for many years, do little more than shelter some luckless individual, whom the driving shower had overtaken in his evening walk. In the summer of the year 1788, this magnificent ruin fell to the ground, alarming the college with its crashing sound. It then appeared how precariously it had stood for many years. Its grand tap-root was decayed; and it had hold of the earth only by two or three roots, of which none was more than a couple of inches in diameter. From a part of its ruins, a chair has been made for the president of the college, which will long continue its memory.

* See Dr. Plot's Hist, of Oxf. ch. vi. sect. 46