Sublime he stands beneath the Gospel tree,
And Edmund stands on Shirecliffe at his side."
The context, too long to quote here, is a passage descriptive of the scenery in the vicinity of Sheffield in one direction, unsurpassed for graphic scope, freshness, and fidelity in the whole range of English rhyme. But the tree? Hundreds of summer visitors climb the hill, and ask that question; and they are pointed to an ash, which stands in a situation conspicuous enough, but which neither the rest of "the trees of the wood," if they could speak, nor the quarryman, who remembers it when a sappling can allow to be the veritable "Gospel tree" of the poet, though, but for this memorandum in "N. & Q.," it might arrive at that distinction in the course of another century. A neighbouring tree, an oak, which those matter-of-fact judges, the trigonometrical surveyors, have marked with a lofty pole, competes with the aforesaid ash for the reverence of pilgrims but its claim is equally apocryphal. If, however, when on the spot, "it is difficult," according to the old adage, "to find the tree for the wood," as I experienced a few days since, it will ever stand conspicuous enough, in the poet's page, and may even serve to divert or recall attention to "Gospel trees," which have more than poetical claim to that appellation.
H.
"Who from the dark and doubtful love to run" (Vol. v., p. 512.).—I presume the lines imperfectly quoted by H. M. are to be found in the "Introduction" to the Parish Register by Crabbe, and which, as the book is before me, I will transcribe:
"Oh! rather give me commentators plain,
Who with no deep researches vex the brain,
Who from the dark and doubtful love to run,
And hold their glimmering tapers to the sun."
S. S. S.