ber 2,426 cubic feet of sound and convertible timber. The bark was estimated at six tons; but as some of the very heavy body bark was stolen out of the barge at Newport, the exact weight is not known. Five men were twenty days stripping and cutting down this tree; and a pair of sawyers were five months converting it, without losing a day (Sundays excepted). The money paid for converting only, independent of the expense of carriage, was £82; and the whole produce of the tree, when brought to market, was within a trifle of £600. It was bought, standing, for £405; the main trunk was 94 feet in diameter, and, in sawing it through, a stone was discovered six feet from the ground, above a yard in the body of the tree, through which the saw cut; the stone was about six inches in diameter, and completely shut in, but round which there was not the least symptom of decay. The rings in its butt were carefully reckoned, and amounted to above four hundred in number, a convincing proof that this tree was in an improving state for upwards of four hundred years; and, as the ends of some of its branches were decayed and had dropped off, it is presumed it had stood a great number of years after it had attained maturity.

The oak is one of the most valuable and majestic trees its leaves are eaten by horses, cows, goats, and sheep; deer and swine fatten on the acorns, and squirrels and other small animals lay them up for winter repast. A luxurious pasturage is afforded, by the acorns, for such hogs as are kept on the borders of forests for about six weeks from the end of September. See Naturalist's Diary for that month, and T. T. for 1814, p. 249. Its bark, when stripped off, is usefully employed for tanning leather, and afterwards for hot-beds and fuel.-Oak timber is well adapted to almost every purpose of rural and domestic economy, particularly for staves, laths, and spokes of wheels. The sawdust, and even the leaves, have been

found useful in tanning: the galls are employed in dying, and various other purposes.

The oak (says Mr. Gilpin') is the most picturesque tree in itself, and the most accommodating in composition. It refuses no subject either in natural or in artificial landscape. It is suited to the grandest, and may, with propriety, be introduced into the most pastoral. It adds new dignity to the ruined tower and gothic arch: by stretching its wild mossgrown branches athwart their ivied walls, it gives them a kind of majesty coeval with itself: at the same time its propriety is still preserved, if it throw its arms over the purling brook, or the mantling pool, where it beholds

Its reverend image in th' expanse below.

The allusions to the oak among the Roman Poets are numerous. The height of the oak is noticed by Virgil (En. iii, 679), and mentioned for the widespread of its branches (Georg. iii, 332), and by Ovid. on the same account (Met. i, 106). Several passages in the poets describe the hardness of its wood, and the operation of splitting an oak is well depicted by Virgil (En. vii, 509), in a line that cannot be read without some effort:

Quadrifidam quercum cuneis ut forte coactis

SCINDEBAT

Its power of resisting the fury of a storm, from its strength, and the depth to which its roots penetrate, is nobly represented by Virgil (En. iv, 441); and Ovid (Met. viii, 743) seems almost to excel the grandeur of this description, by a picture of the oak in peaceful majesty, distinguished by its vast balk, and the almost divine honours which have, at various times, been paid to it:

An antient oak in the dark centre stood,
The covert's glory, and itself a wood;

Forest Scenery, vol. i, p. 34.

Garlands embraced its shaft, and from the boughs
Hung tablets, monuments of prosperous vows.
In the cool dusk its unpierced verdure spread,
The Dryads oft their hallowed dances led;
And oft when round their gaging arms they cast,
Full fifteen ells it measured in the waste:
Its height all under standards did surpass,
As they aspired above the humbler grass.

DRYDEN.

The bold expression, una nemus,' itself a grove, would scarcely apply to any other European tree, and is, therefore, equally appropriate and poetical. Lucan has a fine description of an oak bowed down with age, and ready to fall with the first blast (Phars. i, 137). The use of the fruit of the oak, in the early ages of mankind, as an article of food, is alluded to in almost innumerable passages of the poets. Virgil (Georg. i, 159) threatens the negligent husbandman with being compelled again to shake the oak for his subsistence. Lucretius mentions the acorn, but adds another fruit as the primitive food of inan :

Acorn-meals chief culled they from the shade
Of forest oaks; and, in their wintry months
The wild wood-whortle, with its purple fruit,
Fed them.-

GOOD.

For an account of King Charles's Oak, and the custom of wearing oak-leaves on the 29th of May, see T. T. for 1814, p. 117; and T. T. for 1815, p. 176.

[To be continued.]

SEPTEMBER.

SEPTEMBER is composed of septem, seven, and the termination ber, like lis in Aprilis, Quintilis, Sextilis. This rule will also apply to the three following months, Octo-ber, Novem-ber, Decem-ber. Our Saxon ancestors called it Gerst-monat, for that barley which that moneth commonly yeelded was antiently called gerst.'

Remarkable Days.

1.-SAINT GILES.

GILES, or Ægidius, was born at Athens, but, after he had disposed of his patrimony in charitable uses, came to France in the year 715. He lived two years with Cæsarius, Bishop of Arles, and afterwards retired into solitude. Charles Martel, when hunting, found him in his hermit's cell, and, pleased with his unaffected piety and sanctity of manners, erected an abbey for him at Nismes, of which he was constituted abbot. He died in the year 795.

2.-LONDON BURNT.

The fire of London broke out on Sunday morning, September 2d, 1666, O.S.; and, being impelled by strong winds, raged with irresistible fury, nearly four days and nights; nor was it entirely mastered till the fifth morning after it began.

The following description of this tremendous fire is taken from a rare tract, published in the year 1667, entitled Vincent's God's Terrible Voice in the City.' It was the 2d September, 1666, that the anger of the Lord was kindled against London, and the fire began it began in a baker's house, in Pudding-lane, by Fish-street Hill; and now the Lord is making London like a fiery oven in the time of his anger, and in his wrath doth devour and swallow up our habitations. It was in the depth and dead of the night, when most doors and fences were locked up in the city, that the fire doth break forth and appear abroad; and like a mighty giant refreshed with wine, doth awake and arm itself, quickly gathers strength, when it had made havoc of some houses; rusheth down the Hill towards the Bridge; crosseth Thamesstreet; invadeth Magnus Church, at the Bridge foot; and, though that church were so great, yet it was not a sufficient barricado against this conqueror; but, having scaled and taken this fort, it shooteth

flames with so much the greater advantage into all places round about; and a great building of houses, upon the Bridge, is quickly thrown to the ground: then the conqueror, being stayed in his course at the Bridge, marcheth back to the city again; and runs along with great noise and violence through Thamesstreet, westward; where, having such combustible matter in its teeth, and such a fierce wind upon its back, it prevails with little resistance, unto the astonishment of the beholders.

Fire! Fire! Fire! doth resound the streets; many citizens start out of their sleep; look out of their windows; some dress themselves, and run to the place. The Lord Mayor of the city comes with his officers; a confusion there is; counsel is taken away; and London, so famous for wisdom and dexterity, can now find neither brains nor hands to prevent its ruin. The hand of God was in it; the decree was come forth; London must now fall; and who could prevent it? No wonder, when so many pillars are removed, if the building tumbles; the prayers, tears, and faith which sometimes London hath had, might have quenched the violence of the fire; might have opened heaven for rain, and driven. back the wind: but now the fire gets mastery, and burns dreadfully.

That night most of the Londoners had taken their last sleep in their houses; they little thought it would be so when they went into their beds; they did not in the least suspect, when the doors of their ears were unlocked, and the casements of their eyes were opened in the morning, to hear of such an enemy invading the city, and that they should see him, with such fury, enter the doors of their houses, break into every room, and look out of their casements with such a threatening countenance.

That which made the ruin the more dismal, was, that it was begun on the Lord's day morning: never was there the like sabbath in London; some churches were in flames that day; and God seems to come