Such is the Oak of Allonville, in its state of nature. The hand of Man, however, has endeavoured to impress upon it a character still more interesting, by adding a religious feeling to the respect which its age naturally inspires. The lower part of its hollow trunk has been transformed into a Chapel of six or seven feet in diameter, carefully wainscotted and paved, and an open iron gate guards the humble Sanctuary. Leading to it there is a staircase, which twists round the body of the Tree. At certain seasons of the year divine service is performed in this Chapel. The summit has been broken off many years, but there is a surface at the top of the trunk, of the diameter of a very large tree, and from it rises a pointed roof, covered with slates, in the form of a steeple, which is surmounted with an iron Cross, that rises in a picturesque manner from the middle of the leaves, like an ancient Hermitage above the surrounding Wood. Over the entrance to the Chapel an Inscription appears, which informs us it was erected by the Abbé du Détroit, Curate of Allonville, in the year 1696; and over a door is another, dedicating it ‘To Our Lady of Peace.’”--Vide 14 _No. Saturday Magazine_.--W.W. 1842. [232] 1845. … touch a grated iron door, 1842. [233] 1845. … his eyes the wondering creature cast, 1842. [234] 1845. … a … 1842. [235] 1845. And swift as lightning went the time, ere speech 1842. [236] See note, p. 137.--ED. [237] St. Peter’s Church.--ED. [238] This stanza was added in the edition of 1845. [239] 1845. And though the dream, … 1842. [240] 1845. Was nothing, nor e’er can be aught, ’twas … 1842. SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE OF THE BIRD OF PARADISE Published 1842 [This subject has been treated of in another note. I will here only, by way of comment, direct attention to the fact, that pictures of animals and other productions of Nature, as seen in conservatories, menageries, and museums, etc., would do little for the national mind, nay, they would be rather injurious to it, if the imagination were excluded by the presence of the object, more or less out of a state of Nature. If it were not that we learn to talk and think of the lion and the eagle, the palm-tree, and even the cedar, from the impassioned introduction of them so frequently into Holy Scripture, and by great poets, and divines who wrote as poets, the spiritual part of our nature, and therefore the higher part of it, would derive no benefit from such intercourse with such subjects.--I.F.] One of the “Poems of the Imagination.”--ED.