There is little else to record in connexion with this aged tree. Peasants may have sheltered their flocks for ages beneath its canopy of branches, when those branches were full of sap, and when stately trees stood round in all their greatness, where now only a grassy area meets the eye. But no ancient ruins are to be seen by him who climbs the trunk, nor yet the traces of any city which might have invited the aggressions of an enemy. We conjecture, therefore, that a forest, with breaks of lawn and thicket, and perhaps a common on which the peasant built his hut, and the homestead arose in peaceful times, might have extended round the oak of Salcey. The ground on which we tread presents sufficient indications that such has been the case. The millfoil-yarrow, the wild camomile, the gravel birdweed, and stonebasil, ancient tenants of the soil, which grow only in the purest air of heaven, on waste land and stony banks, are seen in company with the wild bluebell and the crested cowwheat, with which the mower filleth not his hand, nor he that bindeth sheaves his bosom. [Illustration] Old Trees in Welbeck Park. "There oft the Muse, what most delights her, sees Long living galleries of aged trees; Bold sons of earth, that lift their arms so high, As if once more they would invade the sky. In such green palaces the first kings reign'd, Slept in their shades, and angels entertain'd. With such old counsellors they did advise, And, by frequenting sacred groves, grew wise. Free from the impediments of light and noise, Man, thus retir'd, his noblest thoughts employs."--WALLER.