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Updated: May 28, 2025
Prodigies are said, in the lives that have come down to us, to have happened at his birth; his mother dreamt she gave birth to a laurel-branch, which grew apace until it filled the country. A poplar planted at his birth suddenly grew into a stately tree. The infant never cried, and was noted for the preternatural sweetness of its temper.
"Ah, my friend," said he, with a beaming smile, "see how kind Providence is to me! On this painful day she sends me a glorious token, a laurel-branch. My sister gathered it for me on my birthday. Do you know where, my friend? Bow your head, be all attention; for know that it is a branch from the laurel-tree that grows upon Virgil's grave!
His brow was smooth and calm, and a soft, beautiful smile played about his lips. He finished the letter, and throwing it hastily aside, tore open the package. In it was a laurel-branch, covered with beautiful leaves, which looked as bright and green as if they had just been cut. The king raised it, and looked at it tenderly.
The heavy hair cut straight above the forehead and straight over the shoulders, falling in massive clusters. A delicately sculptured laurel-branch is woven into a victor's crown and laid lightly on the tresses it scarcely seems to clasp. So fragile is this wreath that it does not break the pure outline of the boy-conqueror's head. The armor is quite plain. So is the surcoat.
You cannot tell good from bad: you miss the writer's general drift, you miss his subtle arrangements of words: the chaste elegance of a pure style, the false ring of the counterfeit, 'tis all one to you. Are we to understand that you possess literary discernment without the assistance of any study? And how should that be? perhaps, like Hesiod, you received a laurel-branch from the Muses?
Hence, probably, the origin of the crest used by the clan Maclean, the battle-axe surrounded by a laurel-branch. To Gillean of the Battle-axe various origins have been ascribed; truly is it observed, that "there is little wisdom in attempting to thread the mazes of fanciful and traditionary genealogies."
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