Such is the Beech of the Frith Common. It stands alone in the centre of a beautiful common, covered with wild flowers and short herbage, and the fragrant thyme, among which the industrious bee loves to nestle, and to gather in her harvests. The nest of the skylark is among the juniper-bushes that skirt the margin of the common; its joyous tenant is up in air, warbling and rejoicing, and making his high home resound with melody. And well may he rejoice, for he has no sadness to damp his song, no earth-born cares to bring him down. But if we seek for one, albeit assigned to earth, and being unable to soar into mid air, yet thankful and making the best of her humble lot, list to the contented cuckoo; she bids the valley ring with her note, it is unvaried, and some people would fain say that it is wearisome;--no such thing, it is the very voice of spring, telling of sweet flowers and lengthening days, of soft May showers, and of the coming of wandering birds from far-off shores, to make glad the fields of Britain. The Beech of the Frith Common has no voice with which to swell the chorus that has just begun, and which increases daily, as first one musician and then another, comes in aid. But this noble tree is to the eye what music is to the ear. Look at the stately stem, how smooth and glossy; time has not yet furrowed it, nor has the pendent lichen and gray moss rooted themselves in its rough fissures. No records of human crime, nor human care are chronicled upon its bark, no ruin stands near on which the woes of ages have gathered and brood heavy; no associations connected with the beautiful tree, of midnight murders and broken hearts, the tears of orphans and the prayers of oppressed ones, for patience or for redress. Neither is there any trace upon the common, that a circle of unhewn stones ever stood within its precincts, where unhallowed rites were practised, and midnight incantations uttered; nor even that the grave of Briton or of Gaul, of Roman or of Saxon, were made there, for the turf is smooth as velvet. Stately stands the tree, the tree beloved of all. The oak is a majestic tree, the chesnut one of the most umbrageous of forest trees, the elm rises like a pyramid of verdure, the ash has its drooping branches, the maple is celebrated for its light and quivering foliage, but the beech is the poets' tree, the lovers' tree. Have you not heard that young men often haunt the forest, and disfigure the even and silvery bark of beech-trees, by making them the depositors of the names of their beloved ones? "The bark," say they, "conveys a happy emblem," and while thus employed they please themselves with thinking, that as the letters of the name increase, so will their love.