Thursday, January 13, 2011
Tree-Felling at St. John's College, Oxford
Anonymous, On the Burser [sic] of St. John's-College, Oxon, cutting down a fine Row of Trees, in A Collection of Epigrams (London: J. Walthoe, 1727), unpaginated, Epigram LXIV:
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Indulgent Nature to each kind bestowsThe bursar was Dr. Abel Evans (1679-1737). The epigram has been attributed to Dr. Charles Tadlow (1660-1716) and to Dr. George Conyers (1669-1726): see Richard W.H. Nash, Notes and Queries (6th Series, III, May 28, 1881) 436. If by Tadlow, it was tit for tat. Here is Evans' epigram on the corpulent Tadlow:
A secret instinct to discern its foes:
The goose, a silly bird, yet shuns the fox;
Lambs fly from wolves; and sailors steer from rocks.
This rogue the gallows, as his fate, foresees,
And bears the like antipathy to Trees.
When Tadlow treads the streets, the paviors cry,
"God bless you, Sir!" and lay their rammers by.
Labels: arboricide
