When Lord Harcourt about the same time removed the village of Nuneham, an old widow Barbara Wyat by name, earnestly intreated that she might be allowed to remain in her old habitation. The request which it would have been most unfeeling to refuse, was granted; she ended her days there, and then the cottage was pulled down: but a tree which grew beside it, and which she had planted in her youth, is still shown on the terrace at Nuneham, and called by her name. Near it is placed the following Inscription by that amiable man the Laureate Whitehead. Like all his serious poems it may be read with pleasure and profit,—though the affecting circumstance which gives the anecdote its highest interest is related only in a note. This Tree was planted by a female hand, In the gay dawn of rustic beauty's glow; And fast beside it did her cottage stand, When age had clothed the matron's head with snow. To her long used to nature's simple ways, This single spot was happiness compleat; Her tree could shield her from the noontide blaze And from the tempest screen her little seat. Here with her Colin oft the faithful maid, Had led the dance, the envious youths among, Here when his aged bones in earth were laid, The patient matron turned her wheel and sung. She felt her loss, yet felt it as she ought, Nor dared 'gainst Nature's general law exclaim, But checkt her tears and to her children taught That well known truth their lot would be the same. The Thames before her flowed, his farther shores She ne'er explored, contented with her own; And distant Oxford, tho' she saw its towers, To her ambition was a world unknown. Did dreadful tales the clowns from market bear Of kings and tumults and the courtier train, She coldly listened with unheeding ear, And good Queen Anne, for aught she cared, might reign. The sun her day, the seasons marked her year, She toiled, she slept, from care, from envy free; For what had she to hope, or what to fear, Blest with her cottage, and her favourite Tree. Hear this ye Great, whose proud possessions spread O'er earth's rich surface to no space confined! Ye learn'd in arts, in men, in manners read, Who boast as wide an empire o'er the mind, With reverence visit her august domain; To her unlettered memory bow the knee; She found that happiness you seek in vain, Blest with a cottage, and a single Tree.[6] [Footnote 6: The Classical reader will be aware that the Author of these lines had Claudian's “Old Man of Verona” in his mind's eye, as Claudian had Virgil's “Corycian Old Man.”—Georg. iv. 127.]