Pengoose. Finely dismal and romantic, they say, for many miles round the Upas; nothing but poisoned air, mountains, and melancholy. A charming country for making Mems and Nota benes!"
* * * * *
"Act III. Sc. 1.
Pengoose.... That's the Divine, I suppose, who starts the poor prisoners, for the last stage to the Upas tree; an Indian Ordinary of Newgate.
Servant, your brown Reverence! There's no people in the parish, but, I believe, you are the rector?
(Writing). "The reverend Mister Orzinga U.C.J.—The Upas Clergyman of Java."
George Colman the Younger.
[1844.—"We landed in the Rajah's boat at the watering place, near the Upas tree...."—Here follows an interesting account by Mr Adams, in which he describes how "the mate, a powerful person and of strong constitution, felt so much stupified as to be compelled to withdraw from his position on the tree."—Capt. Sir E. Belcher, Narr. of the Voyage of H.M.S. Samarang, i. 180 seqq.]
1868.—"The Church of Ireland offers to us, indeed, a great question, but even that question is but one of a group of questions. There is the Church of Ireland, there is the land of Ireland, there is the education of Ireland ... they are all so many branches from one trunk, and that trunk is the Tree of what is called Protestant ascendancy.... We therefore aim at the destruction of that system of ascendancy, which, though it has been crippled and curtailed by former measures, yet still must be allowed to exist; it is still there like a tall tree of noxious growth, lifting its head to heaven, and darkening and poisoning the land as far as its shadow can extend; it is still there, gentlemen, and now at length the day has come when, as we hope, the axe has been laid to the root of that tree, and it nods and quivers from its top to its base...."—Mr. Gladstone's Speech at Wigan, Oct. 23. In this quotation the orator indicates the Upas tree without naming it. The name was supplied by some commentators referring to this indication at a later date:
1873.—"It was perfectly certain that a man who possessed a great deal of imagination might, if he stayed out sufficiently long at night, staring at a small star, persuade himself next morning that he had seen a great comet; and it was equally certain that such a man, if he stared long enough at a bush, might persuade himself that he had seen a branch of the Upas Tree."—Speech of Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice on the 2nd reading of the University Education (Ireland) Bill, March 3.