as it washes in and out talks better than this.
The nightingale talks better as she sings from
the pomegranate-tree. The watch-dog bays the
moon, but the sounds he utters are more to the
purpose than these which his master speaks.
And far, far off, the winds to which the Lebanon
cedars bow their heads are singing an anthem
which I will listen to awhile before I close my
eyes in sleep.

CHERRIES

Many places have given names both to things
and to individuals. A duke of the ancient
village of Smallborough is addressed by his
intimates as Smallborough. Corinth bears the
blame of conferring a misname on grocers'
currants. The most pungent of peppers comes from,
and is known as, Cayenne. Bayonne originated
an article more difficult to digest—the bayonet.
Sedan-chairs are borne in mind, and by porters,
while the town of Sedan itself is forgotten. China,
a word of very wide territorial historic and
industrial significance, is familiarly limited to fragile
porcelain. Ladies do not hesitate to ask for
so many yards of Irish. From Tulle, towards the
south of France, has gone forth a material of
world-wide repute for female adornment. Which
ideas are suggested by Morocco—bookbinding
and slippers, or a geographical area inhabited
by Moors? Cows, probably, were before Cowes
was; but Worstead, in Norfolk, preceded
worsted, yarn or wool. Had Polonius hidden
behind the fortifications, instead of the tapestry
of Arras, one incident in Shakespeare's Hamlet
would have been as good as impossible.

About a hundred miles west of Trebizond, on
the southern shore of the Black Sea, is a town
now called Chirisonda, anciently Cerasus,
whence, as near as may be eighteen hundred
years ago, the Roman general Lucullus brought
a garden fruit, which found great favour in
Italy. The novelty was called after its place
of growth, a cerasus, in the singular, and (not
to make two bites of one cherry) cerasi in the
plural and preferable number. Learned schoolboys
have little difficulty in translating cerasus,
and even κεpaσos, as "cherry," with comments
(after tasting them) on the comparative merits of
modern varieties. One hundred and twenty years
afterwards, garden cherry-trees were sent to
Great Britain. The hard Ch in Chirisonda might
furnish German lips with Kirschen. Our English
"cherry" is a likely abbreviation of the Italian
ciriegia, pronounced chee-ree-ay-gi-a. France
has garden cherries "cerises," and wild cherries,
"merises," whence the merries or merry
cherries of Cheshire. How the initial c
became converted into m, or how the m was
exchanged for c, is a question out of the writer's
depth. Ameres cerises, bitter cherries, has been
set up, but will not stand, as the derivation; for
the order of the words should be "cerises
ameres." Besides, most merises, although small,
are not bitter, but sweet and sugary.

Granting that Lucullus first introduced
cultivated cherries to the Roman gardens, it does
not necessarily follow that those planted were
the parents of the wild cherries now common
in ancient European forests, such as those of
Compiègne and Orleans, in France, and the
Black Forest, in Germany.

The north has supplied us with a variety, the
morello or morell cherry, which is quite distinct
from the Asiatic races in quality and uses, as well
as in origin. Wild and half-wild cherries, which
are distilled into kirschenwasser, or cherry-spirit,
may be called brandy-cherries; while morells
are the cherries for cherry-brandy. Wild cherries,
moreover, vary among themselves, some taking
the type of the May Duke, some of the white
heart, some of the black cherry. Still, it is
quite possible (considering the lapse of time, the
tendency of cherries raised from stones to
degenerate, and the distributive agency of cherry-
loving birds) that all the wild cherries of Central
and Western Europe are seedlings from the
imported Euxine stock. Owing to the small extent
of self-sown woods in the United Kingdom, wild
cherries are not plentiful with us, and the few we
have are lightly esteemed. On the Continent they
are regularly gathered, largely sold, much
approved by the multitude, furnish material for
the distilleries, and the main ingredient in the
liqueur maraschino. It is also whispered that
they are employed by unprejudiced wine
merchants to give flavour and fruitiness to thin
ill-conditioned wines.

Cherries on the table may be separated into
two classes: the one with round; the other with
heart-shaped fruit. Or, we may make them into
four different groups: Soft-fleshed juicy
cherries, often acidular, early like the May Duke,
easy of digestion, popularly believed to enrich
the blood; firm-fleshed cherries, less juicy,
indigestible but sweet and pleasant, later in
ripening; black cherries (one of the best of
which is the black Tartarian, raised by Knight),
fleshy, sweet, vinous-flavoured, and mostly rather
late; and the Morells, juicy, acid at first, the
latest of all, and hanging long on the tree when
not gathered prematurely.

But, in truth, our word "cherry" is much
too comprehensive. The French employ
distinct substantives to denote various kinds of
cherries (as if they were distinct species of
fruit), while we are obliged to denote their difference
by the use of adjectives. With them, a
white-heart is not a cerise but a bigarrean; a
morell is not a cherry, but a griotte—sometimes,
however, a cerise du Nord. Nor can we speak
of cherries horticulturally, without making use
of the French nomenclature. There are also
practical reasons for employing different names
for the different sorts, which some botanists, as
De Candolle, have regarded as distinct species.
The merisiers and the cerisiers have a marked
distinctive character, which is sure to strike
gardeners. The blossoms of the merisier are
produced on the wood of the year before last;
those of the cerisier properly so called, on last
year's wood. Moreover, the bunches in which
they grow, are sessile in the one, and slightly
pedunculated in the other. The leaves in the