Tree Stramony. _Datura arborea._
Dedicated to _St. Gregory_.
~November 18.~
_The Dedication of the Churches of Sts. Peter_, and _Paul_, at Rome.
_Sts. Alphæus_, and _Zachæus_; also _Romanus_, and _Barulas_. _St.
Odo_, Abbot of Cluni, A. D. 942. _St. Hilda_, or _Hild_, Abbess, _A.
D._ 680.
The “_Mirror of the Months_,” a pleasing volume published in the autumn
of 1825, and devoted to the service of the year, points to the
appearance of nature at this time:--“The last storm of autumn, or the
first of winter, (call it which you will) has strewed the bosom of the
all-receiving earth with the few leaves that were still clinging, though
dead, to the already sapless branches; and now all stand bare once more,
spreading out their innumerable ramifications against the cold grey sky,
as if sketched there for a study by the pencil of your only successful
drawing-mistress--nature.
“Of all the numerous changes that are perpetually taking place in the
general appearance of rural scenery during the year, there is none so
striking as this which is attendant on the falling of the leaves; and
there is none in which the unpleasing effects so greatly predominate
over the pleasing ones. To say truth, a grove denuded of its late
gorgeous attire, and instead of bowing majestically before the winds,
standing erect and motionless while they are blowing through it, is ‘a
sorry sight,’ and one upon which we will not dwell. But even this sad
consequence of the coming on of winter (sad in most of its mere visible
effects,) is not entirely without redeeming accompaniments; for in most
cases it lays open to our view objects that we are glad to see again, if
it be but in virtue of their association with past years; and in many
cases it opens vistas into sweet distances that we had almost forgotten,
and brings into view objects that we may have been sighing for the sight
of all the summer long. Suppose, for example, that the summer view from
the windows of a favourite sleeping-room is bounded by a screen of
shrubs, shelving upwards from the turf, and terminating in a little
copse of limes, beeches, and sycamores; the prettiest boundary that can
greet the morning glance when the shutters are opened, and the sun
slants gaily in at them, as if glad to be again admitted. How pleasant
is it, when (as now) the winds of winter have stripped the branches
that thus bound our view in, to spy beyond them, as if through network,
the sky-pointing spire of the distant village church, rising from behind
the old yew-tree that darkens its portal; and the trim parsonage beside
it, its ivy-grown windows glittering perhaps in the early sun! Oh, none
but those who _will_ see the good that is in every thing, know how very
few evils there are without some of it attendant on them, and yet how
much of good there is unmixed with any evil.
“But though the least pleasant sight connected with the coming on of
winter in this month is to see the leaves that have so gladdened the
groves all the summer long, falling every where around us, withered and
dead,--that sight is accompanied by another which is too often
overlooked. Though most of the leaves fall in winter, and the stems and
branches which they beautified stand bare, many of them remain all the
year round, and look brighter and fresher now than they did in spring,
in virtue of the contrasts that are every where about them. Indeed the
cultivation of evergreens has become so general with us of late years,
that the home enclosures about our country dwellings, from the proudest
down to even the poorest, are seldom to be seen without a plentiful
supply, which we now, in this month, first begin to observe, and
acknowledge the value of. It must be a poor plot of garden-ground indeed
that does not now boast its clumps of winter-blowing laurestinus; its
trim holly bushes, bright with their scarlet berries; or its tall spruce
firs, shooting up their pyramid of feathery branches beside the low
ivy-grown porch. Of this last-named profuse ornamentor of whatever is
permitted to afford it support, (the ivy) we now too every where
perceive the beautifully picturesque effects: though there is one effect
of it also perceived about this time, which I cannot persuade myself to
be reconciled to: I mean where the trunk of a tall tree is bound about
with ivy almost to its top, which during the summer has scarcely been
distinguished as a separate growth, but which now, when the other leaves
are fallen, and the outspread branches stand bare, offers to the eye,
not a contrast, but a contradiction. But let us not dwell on any thing
in disfavour of ivy, which is one of the prime boasts of the village
scenery of our island, and which even at this season of the year offers
pictures to the eye that cannot be paralleled elsewhere. Perhaps as a
single object of sight, there is nothing which gives so much innocent
pleasure to so many persons as an English village church, when the ivy
has held undisputed possession of it for many years, and has hung its
fantastic banners all around it. There is a charm about an object of
this kind, which it is as difficult to resist as to explain.”
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