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his former existence in a tree of the same
kind; or which was not less likely in the
wanton ivy which had clasped one, or in the
wild vine which had festooned its branches
with greener leaves, or even in the agaric
which had grown out of its decaying sub-
stance. And he would have quoted Words-
worth if the Sage of Rydal had not been of
a later generation:
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;
The soul that rises with us,-our life's star,
Hath bad elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar.
Other examples of men who have doated
upon particular trees he accounted for by
the same philosophy. But in the case of the
Consul Crispus he was more inclined to hold
the first supposition, - to wit, that he had
been a beech himself, and that the tree which
he loved so dearly had sprung from his own
mast, so that the feeling with which he re-
garded it was a parental one. For that man
should thus unconsciously afford proof of his
relationship to tree, was rendered more pro-
bable by a singular, though peradventure
single fact, in which a tree so entirely re-
cognised its affinity with man, that a slip
accidentally grafted on the human subject,
took root in the body, grew there, flourished,
blossomed and produced fruit after its kind.
" A shepherd of Tarragon had fallen into a
sloe tree, and a sharp point thereof having
run into his breast, in two years time it took
such root, that, after many branches had
been cut off, there sprang up some at last
which bare both flowers and fruit."
" Peiresc," as Gassendi the writer of his life
assures us, " would never be quiet till Car-
dinal Barberino procured the Archbishop of
that place to testify the truth of the story;
and Putean the knight received not only
letters testifying the same, but also certain
branches thereof, which he sent unto him."
CHAPTER CCXVI.
A SPANISH AUTHORESS. HOW THE DOCTOR
OBTAINED   HER  WORKS FROM     MADRID.
THE PLEASURE AND ADVANTAGES WHICH
THE AUTHOR DERIVES FROM HIS LAND-
MARKS IN THE BOOKS WHICH HE HAD
PERUSED.
ALEX. Quel es D. Diego aquel Arbol,
que tiene la copa en tierra
y las raises arriba P
DIEG. El hombie.   EL LETRADO DEL CIELO.
MAN is a Tree that bath no top in cares,
No root in comforts.*
This is one of the many poetical passages in
which the sound is better than the sense;-
yet it is not without its beauty. The same
similitude has been presented by Henry More
in lines which please the ear less, but satisfy
the understanding.
The lower man is nought but a fair plant
Whose grosser matter is from the base ground.
" A plant," says Jones of Nayland, " is a
system of life, but insensitive and fixed to a
certain spot. An animal hath voluntary
motion, sense, or perception, and is capable
of pain and pleasure. Yet in the construc-
tion of each there are some general prin-
ciples which very obviously connect them.
It is literally as well as metaphorically true,
that trees have limbs, and an animal body
branches. A vascular system is also common
to both, in the channels of which life is
maintained and circulated. Whlen the
trachea, with its branches in the lungs, or
the veins and arteries, or the nerves, are
separately represented, we have the figure
of a tree. The leaves of trees have a
fibrous and fleshy part; their bark is a
covering which answers to the skin in
animals. An active vapour pervades them
both, and perspires from both, which is
necessary for the preservation of health and
vigour. The vis vit,, or involuntary, me-
chanical force of animal life, is kept up by
the same elements which act upon plants for
their growth and support." t
* CHAPMAN.
t The reader of Berkeley will naturally turn to the
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_ _
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THE DOCTOR.
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