"The monarch oak, the patriarch of the trees,
Shoots rising up, and spreads by slow degrees:
Three centuries he grows, and three he stays
Supreme in state; and in three more decays."
I think it probable that they are from a play of Dryden or Otway; but some of your readers may probably be able to answer this Query.
T. C.
Durham.
[In Richardson's Dictionary, as well as in the Encyclopædia Metropolitana, these lines are quoted under the word Patriarch, as from The Cock and the Fox, by Dryden; whereas Bysshe, in his Art of English Poetry, under the word Oak, refers us to Dryden's Ovid. In neither of these pieces do they occur; our correspondent, however, will find them in Dryden's Palamon and Arcite, or the Knight's Tale, line 2334.]
Olivarius.
—Can any of your readers inform me what is the title of a book written by Olivarius, a French astrologer, 1542, in which there is a prophecy relative to France, and somewhat similar to that of St. Cæsarius (p. 471.)? What was his christian name, and in what library is the work to be found?