. MATTHEW ARNOLD'S SIGNAL ELM '
[To the Editor of the SpEcrAros..]
aspect of the surrounding country has beep completely changed within living memory . .
" Two well-knoWn elegise poems f Of Matthew Arnold-' The Scholar-Gipsy' and -Thyrsis ' (1861)—are valuable- aa depicting, among a somewhat muddled blend of classical :illusion, the general aspect of the open country around. Oxford in the early nineteenth century. A tree is still poiiited out as the Glanvil Elm,' Umbrella Tree,' or Matthew Arnold's signal tree,' a conspicuous lanchnerk on the hills to the west bare on its lonely ridge. ,A favourite walk of this time was to follow the old pack-horse :track straight up from South Hinksey, over Boar's 'Mt to WOOtton. and Besseltdeigh. ' On turning down Lake Street from-the Abingdon Road this tree is curiously centred at the end of the- vista of small houses and the waterworks and on crossing the ' (City Reservoir) and the Railway (by ' Jacob's Ladder ' ) is still straight ahead on the edge of the ridge. Passing over the causeway(` Devil's Backbone ' ) to South Iruaksey, and going up through the crops (mangels, potatoes, and barley) of the small-holders, the tree IS again centred at the top gate to the ' Happy Valley.' The path continues past Chilswell Farm, rising over the hill (400 ft.) formerly used as a golf course, and ahead will be noticed a conspicuously isolated tree, standing out against the sky, in the hedge-waste about 150 yds. left of the foot- path. " The tree is a tall, badly stag-headed Oak, pilloried with epicor- mic shoots, the trunk 2 ft. in diameter. One comes immediately to -barbed wire, the cultivated amble fields of Pickett's Heath and houses. The track continues on for half a mile to meet the main road at Hill Crest (500 ft.), and a pilgrimage of disillusion ends appropriately at the Boar's Hill Shop - (Howard and Nicholson, Licensed to sell Tobacco and Methylated Spirit). There is no other 'signal eke that looks on Maley Downs,' and the spirit that prompted these lines is now something less than the shadow of a dream."
Six,—The locus classicus for this is A. H. Church's Introduction . .
to the Plant Life of the Oxford Distrkt (0.U. Press, 1922: 3s. 6d.) pp. 92-3, footnote. He is describing how the general
I am, Sir, &c., H. F. SCOTT STORRS.
Bulwarks Lane, Glastonbury.
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