Sylvan winter;

Front matter

Cornell University

The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library.

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Preface

AM not surprised that the ancients worshipped trees. Lakes and mountains, however glorious for a time, in time weary—sylvan scenery never palls.’

So-ran, at its conclusion, a remarkable and interesting letter, which the late Lord Beaconsfield, in December, 1880, a few months only before his death, wrote to the Author of this volume. In the same letter the distinguished statesman and littérateuwr, turning from the subject with which he had prefaced his communication, remarked: ‘ With regard to trees, I passed part of my youth in the shade of vi PREFACE.

Burnham Beeches, and have now the happiness of living amid my own “ green retreats.” ’ To the writer’s mind, therefore, for the moment, it was the especial verdancy of spring and summer which suggested the picture of ‘ sylvan scenery ;’ and sylvan scenery, to the popular mind, is an expression which mostly implies the leafiness of the seasons that precede the fall. Yet the ancient worship of trees must rather have been suggested by the stern wintry aspect of the monarchs of the woods, than by the softer appearance of their summer clothing—for the strength and power and grandeur, if the idea may be allowed, of the tree-form would be more conspicuous when divested of foliage. Similarly the grandeur and solemnity of the forest would more powerfully affect the feelings when the great trunks and huge limbs of the sylvan giants stood out-clearly defined against the wintry sky. The ‘sacred hunt’ for the venerated Mistletoe was a winter rite—for that curious parasitic evergreen could not have been discovered amongst the summer mass of green leaves; and the ‘sacred fire’ of the Druids, communicated from the burning Yule-log,

PREFACE. vil gleamed amidst the sylvan scenery of the cold season.

That Winter is a period of interest and beauty cannot be denied by the student of the woods and fields, though the popular mind regards, perhaps, with little favour the ungenial characteristics of this season.

To point out, however, the especial charm of out-of-door Winter is the aim of the writer of this volume; and in promoting this object, he believes he is calling attention to a neglected subject. “In his ‘Sylvan Spring’ he sought to portray, by pen and pencil, the aspect of the vernal season; in ‘ Autumnal Leaves,’ the especial charm. of the season of the fall; and now he hopes he may secure some measure of success in a description of the particular beauty of ‘Sylvan Winter.’ ;

THE ILLUSTRATIONS.

ICTURES are so common a feature, in the present day, of every book on ‘ every subject, that pp pitiell. Se especial reference to the ae part they play in the discussion of subjects seems scarcely to be necessary. The illustration should, of course, speak for itself; and whilst it is hoped that those in this volume will not fail in this essential qualification, some explanation of the particular object of their introduction must be given.

In introducing for the first time (in ‘ Autumnal Leaves’) Mr. Frederick Golden Short’s work to the public, the present writer remarked that the Artist, living amidst the most beautiful woodland scenery in this country, had learnt his art from the great book of Nature, and he predicted, from

THE ILLUSTRATIONS. 1x an intimate knowledge of the scenes which Mr. Short had depicted, that those who were equally familiar with these scenes would recognize in this young artist’s pictures ‘a touch which no mere art-training could give.’ The verdict of the press confirmed this estimate, one journal remarking that Mr. Short’s graceful sketches were ‘instinct with a true feeling for Nature, and full of delicate appreciativeness for quiet English country life.’ Of his work for this volume the verdict will not—the Author is convinced, if he may venture to speak for his coadjutor—be less favourable, though the aspect of Nature dealt with is so different. The essential function of art in drawing is not to improve Nature—as some artists, with rare conceit, imagine—but to copy her. Fidelity to the original is, therefore, the best and surest test of artistic ability. To this test the Author begs to submit the work of one who cannot speak for himself.

The initial-letter designs have been made to harmonize with the general purpose of this work, and to exhibit scenery of different kinds, under its wintry aspect, an aspect which, it is desired, z THE ILLUSTRATIONS.

should be natural and not stiff or conventional —true, that is to say, to life. Here the scenes selected by the Artist are sometimes wild, and sometimes instinct with what may be called a ‘feeling’ of domesticity. Yet there is no formal intention to give especial meaning to these little ‘pits’ of scenery. They are intended to be typical, in a general way, and that is all.

In the case of the larger drawings, however, there is a more set and immediate purpose to subserve, for the accomplishment of which the Author has sought the particular and painstaking co-operation of the Artist. This purpose is essentially preceptive, the design being not to introduce pretty scenery, generally representative of Winter, but to introduce—each in its own familiar and characteristic landscape—the wintry forms of prominent and well-known trees. The forms mostly selected are those of deciduous trees, because, of course, it is these which exhibit such marked differences of aspect in summer and in Winter ; but some evergreen forms—such as the Cedar, the Stone Pine, and the Scotch Fir—are also represented, just as types oftheir class. The

THY ILLUSTRATIONS. xi deciduous forms include the Oak, the Ash, the Beech, the Elm, the Birch, the Hornbeam, the Willow, the Poplar, the Chestnut, the Horse Chestnut, the Plane, the Wild Cherry, the Apple, and the Pear, and each has been drawn from the life.

A yet more especial and novel feature of the volume will be found in the twig drawings. From the general wintry form of the tree, as shown in the landscape drawings, we descend to the parts, in order to give, in more minute detail, the salient characteristics of the ramification. The drawings of twigs comprise the Oak, Beech, Elm, Ash, Birch, Lime, Chestnut, Sycamore, Willow, Alder, Blackthorn, Hawthorn, Hazel, Maple, Hornbeam, Larch, Horse Chestnut, Plane, Poplar, Mountain Ash, Apple, Cedar, Yew, and Scotch Fir. These, it will probably be admitted, are sufficiently wide and representative, and, in conjunction with the other special drawings and studies, will, it is hoped, not merely please, but instruct the yeader and the student.

It may be accepted as sufficient evidence of the quality of the engravings to mention that the work has been done by Mr. Cooper.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

= oe 3S 5

p>

INITIAL-LETTER DRAWINGS.

Copse . 3 3 F Stream and Rustic Bridge Lodge and Wood .

Stream through Copse .

Church seen through Trees

River winding through Hills .

Brawling Stream and Wood .

Owl near Wood Old Mill Fallen Tree .

Snow down

A Wintry Road

Moorland Stream and Bridge

Flooded Meadows .

Country Cottages .

Winiry Field-Paths River-side Houses

Open Forest after Floods

Letter

NHM SSG w

Alder

Ash

Beech Birch Blackthorn Cedar Chestnut Crab Apple Elm.

Hawthorn Hazel Hornbeam

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

River and Bridge .

A boulder Stream .

Forest Fence

. Spire amidst Trees Water through Trees Open Forest by Day Forester’s Dwelling

Open Forest at Night

TWIG DRAWINGS.

PAGE

Horse Chestnut Larch

Lime

Maple .

Mountain Ash Oak

Plane

Poplar .

Scotch Fir.

Sycamore Willow .

Yew

PAGE

. 171 . 162 . 156 . 159

FULL PAGE LANDSCAPE DRAWINGS.

PAGE

Sylvan Winter ; : ‘ : ; Frontispiece Park Glade, showing Acacia . : : . facing 176 Forest Road, showing Ash and Birch : $9 64 Flooded Stream (Evening), showing Beeches . 3 48 Pastoral Scene, showing Chestnut . *5 192 Park Glade, showing Elm ; ‘ P ‘ i 80 Forest Pool, showing Hornbeam . 5 96 Lake and Mountains, showing Larch and State Pine ,, 240 Home through the Forest, showing Field Maple and

Wild Cherry . ; ; 4 112 Winding Stream, showing ia Oak. ee 53 32 Home through the Forest, showing Oak . : * 16 Frosty Morning, showing Plane, Elms, and Lom-

bardy Poplar . ‘ : Z 55 128 By the River, showing Abele Pople ‘ 3 160 In the Park, showing Black and Lombardy Poplars _,, 144 In the Forest, showing Scotch Fir and Yew ‘ 224 Underwood, showing Thorn and Ivy 53 208

SMALLER LANDSCAPES.

Cedar on the Uplands (Sun setting) ; ‘ ‘ . 70 Park Glade, showing Horse Chestnut . : ‘ . 59 Farm Enclosure, showing Pear F : : : . 62 Apple Orchard (misty Moonlight) . : 62

By the Lake-side, showing Lombardy Poplar ha Willow . 52

II. Leartzess Woops II. Trez Forms

IV. Evererren Beauty

V. Snow . :

VIII. Hoar-Frost

X. THawine

XIII. Cotovur XIV. Lire, Movement, Foros xvi CONTENTS.

Part II. Winter Wood Lore

CHAPTER I. Spray .

II. Uszs or Woop

TIT. Prant-SLEEp

IV. Dormant Seeps .

V. Acres or TREES

VI. Fossm Forests .

VIL. Tree-Foop .

X. Sytvan NoMENCLATURE

InpDEx .

PART I.

SYLVAN WINTER.

L WINTRY OUTLOOKS.

INTER, as it is . presented to the mind in its ideal form, is coms. monly associated with thoughts of cold and frost; of cutting wind: and chilling .rain; ‘of snow - covered | fields and ice-bound streams and lakes; of barren-

ness, bleakness, and cheerlessness. When Shake-

speare refers to ‘The Winter of our discontent’ B 2 a) Oe an idea of the dead season is conveyed in a manner which suggests the simpler notion of desolation in its abstract form. Barnard admirably conveys the general idea in the lines :—

‘The dead leaves strew the forest-walk, ‘ And wither’d are the pale wild flowers ; “The frost hangs blackening on the stalk, The dew-drops fall in frozen showers ; Gone are the spring’s green sprouting bowers, Gone, summer’s rich and mantling vines ; And autumn, with her yellow hours, On hill and plain no longer shines.’

To those who view Nature from a distant outlook, and regard her with cold and unsympathetic eyes, Winter is doubtless presented under an aspect like that of a desert, or of a barren moorland ‘held under the chill grip of all-pervading cold—a region given up to lifelessness . and gloom.

Thomson, in his ‘ Winter,’ expresses the same idea when he says :~

‘Dread Winter spreads his latest glcoms, ‘And reigns tremendous o’er the conquer’d year. How dread the vegetable kingdom lies :

How dumb the tuneful: Horror wide extends His desolate domain.’

WINTRY OUTLOOKS. Bs)

Yet in the same poem he conveys the idea of Winter as presented to the intellectual mind :—

‘ All Nature feels the renovating force, Of Winter, only to the thoughtless eye In ruin seen. The frost-contracted glebe Draws in abundant vegetable soul, And gathers vigour for the coming year, A stronger glow sits on the lively cheek Of ruddy fire; and luculent along The purer rivers flow: their sullen deeps, Transparent, open to the shepherd’s gaze And murmur hoarser at the fixing frost.’

But even here it is the physical benefits conferred by Winter, and not its scenic beauty, that stress is laid upon: and our poets have mostly waxed eloquent upon the ‘dread’ and ‘chill’ aspect of the dead season. Cowper paints a terrible picture, yet fringes it with silver in the last two of the following lines :-——

‘Oh, Winter! ruler of the inverted year, Thy scatter’d hair with sleet-like ashes fll’d, Thy breath congeal’d upon thy lips, thy cheeks Fringed with a beard made white with other snows Than those of age; thy forehead wrapp’d in clouds,

A leafless branch thy sceptre, and thy throne A sliding car indebted to no wheels,

But urged by storms along its slippery way ; _ [love thee, all unlovely as thou seem’st, ' And dreaded as thou art.’

‘ All unlovely as thou seem’st’ again pictures the popular idea, though ‘I love thee’ implies the discernment of beauty unsuspected by the careless passer-by. Yet the expression ‘A leafless branch thy sceptre’ implies a severity of opinion intended to strip the subject of any idea of interest or beauty. To the ‘leafless branch,” however, we shall look, in the succeeding pages, for-a large store of the symmetry and beauty which go to furnish the external aspect of Sylvan Winter.

George Crabbe gives expression to the ideas so largely prevalent amongst our poets when he says :— .

‘When Winter stern his gloomy front uprears, A sable void the barren earth appears ;

The meads no more their former verdure boast, Fast bound their etreams and all their beauty lost.’

Here truth is clearly subordinated to poetical effect. Rhymsters are far too frequently the slaves of their rhymes. The same writer paints

WINTRY OUTLOOKS. 7 almost as black a picture as that drawn by Thomson in the lines already quoted from his ‘Winter.’ It is in his ‘Inebriety’ that Crabbe’s lines oecur, in which he gives the following terrible view, and the verse succeeds the one just given :—_

‘From snow-topp’d hills the whirlwinds keenly blow,

Howl through the woods and pierce the vale’ below,

Through the sharp air a flaky torrent flies, Mocks the slow sight and hides the gloomy skies.’

Ably descriptive as are all these verses of the harsher aspects of Winter, they seem to the present writer to err only in so far as they give a general character to particular features; but this error is widely made by poets who conceive that Winter is all black and dismal, that it has no brighter side, and that if there be brighter intervals they are ‘ unseasonable.’ The popular though erroneous notion of a forest is that of land covered uninterruptedly with trees. Forest, in fact, is country of a mixed kind, and may include woods, heaths, moors, mountains, and streams. So Winter is a season of a mixed character, and may include different kinds of weather, mostly cold but not always or necessarily so, and by no means given up to the uninterrupted reign of frost and snow. It would be contrary to the purposes of Nature were all the world held under the icy grip of cold during the whole of the wintry season. The genial intervals which unthinking people are in the habit of calling ‘unseasonable,’ are a quite necessary part of the wise economy of things, during what to the vegetable and to the bird and insect world is mostly a season of rest. Nature could no more endure the constant presence of severe cold during what are called the winter months than it could the steadfast prevalence of scorching sun in the summer. How often has the clouding of the sky and the cooling of the wind in the last-mentioned season been welcomed as a wise and necessary relief from the solar glare! and how often, on the beneficent prin- ‘ciple under which the coldness of the wind is tempered to the shorn lamb, is the coldness of what is called but is only partly—in truth—the ‘dead season,’ tempered to meet the varying requirements of animated creation! Yet the sea-

WINTRY OUTLOOKS. 9 son is not changed by the changes of temperature and aspect. Now and then there is what seems a violent change in character. Frost and snow will sometimes reign uninterruptedly for many weeks with exceptional severity, and at other times the character of the weather, during nearly the whole of the season, is more autumnal than winterly. But it may be said that it is not the particular season but the cycle of seasons which makes up Winter in its proper acceptation.

Wintry outlooks, therefore, in the view we here adopt, do not mean only scenes of frost and snow and of bleakness and barrenness, of misty air and leaden skies. They mean also blue skies and sunny air; scenes of beauty in the graceful leafless forms—spreading over the landscapes—of deciduous trees; and the brightness and sparkle of the evergreen loveliness which boon Nature displays in many a nook and angle to maintain perpetual verdure for the comfort and happiness of mankind.

I, LEAFLESS WOODS.

LEAFY forest, Gilpin remarks, in his ‘ Forest Scenery,’ * is not solely the object of incidental beauty. ‘ The picturesque eye,’ he quaintly adds, ‘finds great amusement even in its wintry scenes, when it has thrown its rich mantle aside, and appears, to the common eye, naked and deformed.’ This last expression —‘naked and deformed ’—happily conveys the popular idea of the forest in Winter. Bare

* * Heath’s Gilpin’s Forest Scenery,’ page 348. The subsequent references to ‘ Forest Scenery’ are also to the present writer's edition.

ground strewn with dead leaves, and the naked forms of trees, are all that the unobservant pedestrian sees in his walks through wintry woods. Except in search of sport, and, then, gun in hand, he does not attempt to walk through when the ground is covered with snow, and frost holds the air. When the air is crisp and the ground is dry he will often do so, but in search of exercise and not of beauty. Yet the careful study of winter woodlands is delightful. Gilpin, in continuing the remarks just quoted, provides some pleasant suggestions for the early riser on a winter day. ‘The: hazy sunshine of a frosty morning, he says, ‘is accompanied by an indistinctness peculiar to itself. The common haziness of a summer day spreads over the land- ‘scape one general grey tint; and, as we have had occasion to remark in different circumstances, is often the source of great beauty. But the effect we are here observing is of adifferentkind. Itis generally more partial—more rich—and, mixing with streaks of different coloured clouds, which often form behind it, produces a very pleasing effect. The case is, the sun is lower in the horizon and produces an effect which a meridian sun cannot do.’ But it is not merely the gencral effect of the play of sunshine—through clouds— upon the forest as a whole that is noticeable ; for the peculiarities of individual trees add largely to the beauty of the scene. Gilpin does not say very much upon the wintry aspect: of the forest, but what he does say is well worth quoting. ‘Great beauty also,’ he remarks, ‘ arises in Winter, from the different tints of the spray. The dark-brown spray of the Birch for instance has a good effect, among that of a lighter tinge ; and, when the forest is deep, all this little bushiness of ramification has, in some degree, the effect of foliage.’ He adds, ‘The boles of trees likewise, and all their larger limbs, add, at this season, a rich variety and contrast to the forest ; the smooth and the rough, the light and the dark, often beautifully opposing each other. In Winter the stem predominates, as the leaf in summer. It is amusing in one season to see the branches losing and discovering themselves among the foliage; and it is amusing also, in the other, to walk through the desolate forest, and see the various combinations of stems—the traversing of branches across each other in so many beautiful directions—and the pains which Nature takes in forming a wood as well as a single tree. She leaves no part unclosed; but pushing in the branch or the spray as the opening allows, she fills all vacant space and brings the heads of trees, which grow near each other, into contact; while every step we take presents us with some beautiful variety in her mode of forming the fretted roof under which we walk.’

Very beautiful, in its suggestiveness, is this language of the delightful writer on ‘Forest Scenery.’ ‘The pains which Nature takes in forming a wood as well as a single tree’—the italics are Gilpin’s. Those who notice such things at all must often have remarked when planting any little spot in a garden or park how quickly Nature—kind Nature in this as in everything—undoes the clumsy work of the planter. Be he ever so deft in arranging the positions of the plants he wishes to grow and the relations of these to each other, he cannot—it is impossible— however artistic and tasteful may be his method, put them just as Nature would have them, and as he—the planter—admits when, sometimes after a few days, sometimes after a few weeks, and sometimes it may be after months and years, he looks at them arranged as Nature wills. Whether the place planted be a little rockery of small herbaceous plants, a garden bed, a whole garden, or a park or wood, the eye at once detects the hand of the planter. Branches and leaves appear to be all awry. But Nature quickly steps in and with exquisite grace and symmetry arranges the whole. ‘She leaves no part unclosed.’ Here is the secret. The expression ‘ Nature abhors a vacuum’ has often been used. Her office is to leave nothing unutilized; and in the woods she is constantly seeking, as elsewhere, to fill every space; yet in such a way as to cause no confusion and little jostling. The season of growth is, of course, the period. when these symmetrical and beautiful arrangements are made. The vigorous shoot that is to.form the limb, the ramifications of those that are to form the branches and twigs, all co-operate to make up the perfect whole.

Spring and summer, as we _ have said, manufacture; but it is Winter that discloses the work, in the deciduous forest. Then, and then only, can we see the entire effect, because the garment of leaves has been thrust aside and Nature holds her exhibition—tree to all—of form ; and its finest effect is seen in the forest which has been untouched by the hand of the pruning forester.

It is this close and intimate: view—which the free exhibition of Nature discloses to the interested and delighted student—that opens up the marvellous variety conspicuous, not only in the forest as a whole, but in individual trees even of the same kind. Gilpin says, in his description of- what he calls the ‘picturesque beauty’ of trees, that ‘though every animal is distinguished from its fellow by some little variation of colour, character, or shape, yet in all the larger parts, in the body and limbs, the resemblance is generally exact. In trees it is just the reverse; the smaller parts— the spray, the leaves, the blossom, and the seed— are the same in all trees of the same kind, while the larger parts are wholly different. You seldom see two Oaks with an equal number of limbs, the same kind of head, and twisted in the same form : and it is from these larger parts that the most beautiful varieties result.’ *

Conspicuous, of course, amongst the leafless denizens of the forest is the Oak, and its ruggedness and grandeur impress, alike, all who look upon it with interest. It appears to and does hold the ground as no other tree does. Its power is amazing—its enormous tap-root penetrating the ground and holding it in place so firmly as to enable it to defy the tempest. From its great bole—fashioned with such peculiar strength and so admirably adapted to meet the force of hurricanes. —spread, in their enormous amplitude, the limbs ; from these the twisted branches, and from the branches the contorted spray. Of the especial stoutness of the ‘ King of the Forest’ Gilpin has something characteristic to say.. In speaking of this he remarks: ‘A second characteristic of the Oak, of which Virgil takes notice, is the stoutness of its limbs; its fortes ramos. We know no tree, except perhaps the Cedar of

OAR.

Lebanon, so remarkable in this respect. The limbs of most trees spring from the trunk. In the Oak they may be rather said to divide from it; for they generally carry with them a great share of the substance of the stem. You often scarcely know which is stem and which is branch ; and towards the top, the stem is entirely lost in the branches. This gives particular propriety to the epithet fortes in characterizing the branches of the Oak; and hence its sinewy elbows are of such peculiar use in ship-building. Whoever, therefore, does not mark the fortes ramos of the Oak, might as well, in painting a Hercules, omit his muscles. But I speak only of the hardy veterans of the forest. In the effeminate nurslings of the grove we have not this appearance. There, the tree is all stem, drawn up into height. When we characterize a tree, we consider it in its natural state, insulated, and without any lateral pressure. In a forest trees naturally grow in that manner. The seniors depress all the juniors that attempt to rise near them. But in a planted grove all grow up together ; and none can exert any power over another.’ 0

Such special mention the Oak demands in our dealing with the general wintry aspect of the forest because it is a dominating figure. We entirely agree with Gilpin that it is ‘the most picturesque tree in itself, and the most accommodating in composition.’ He rightly adds that ‘it refuses no subject either in natural or in artificial landscape. It is suited to the grandest, and may, with propriety, be introduced into the most pastoral. It adds new dignity to the ruined tower and Gothic arch; by stretching its wild, moss-grown branches athwart their ivied walls it gives them a kind of majesty coeval with itself. At the same time its propriety is still preserved if it throw its arms over the purling brook or the mantling pool, where it beholds

‘“Tts reverend image in the expanse below.”’

In the leafless woods the grandeur and robustness of the Oak, so greatly exceeding that of other trees, serves to establish contrasts which are all the more striking because the ‘ King of the Forest’ forms a foil, or background, so to speak, that establishes a basis cf comparison with the gracefulness and symmetry of the Beech, the lightness and elegance of the Ash, the delicate beauty of the Birch, and the contorted picturesqueness of the Hawthorn. Of these all, in turn, and of many others, we shall speak in the succeeding chapter. Here we take note only of the forest as a whole, or of the wood or copse which forms part of the forest. The individual tree can be studied by itself in that detail which the interest of the subject demands; but to get a good and comprehensive view of the whole so as to fully appreciate the exceeding beauty of the forms unclothed by the mantling foliage of summer, not only in themselves, but in their relations to others, it is through leafless woods that the inquirer must direct his steps.

Il.

TREE FORMS.

EPHYRS that gently touch the summer leaves of the forest give the charm of movement to the varying shades of verdure which spread over the landscape and impress the brain, through the eye, with that sense of beauty which lends such fascination to summer foliage. But the still air of a frosty day, when the atmosphere is freed from fog or mist, provides the best condition for studying the beautiful forms of trees.

First, by right of magnificence must come the tree that reigns in the forest—the noble Oak.

TREE FORMS. O11 °

The saplings of most trees foreshadow the characters which become pronounced as age creeps on. The stem of the young Oak is often twisted ; its bark is grey in colour, and somewhat rough. Its buds are irregularly placed along the branches, the spray being rather abundant but stout, and the buds not large but prominent; the smaller branches growing from each other at obtuse angles and, twisting picturesquely, showing thus early, though remotely, the ruggedness of the mature tree. These characters are continued and maintained during the middle age ofthe Oak, and emphasized as it approaches old age and decay. Mr. Short’s drawing of the Oak, in the landscape en- - eraving facing page 16, happily conveys the picture of the tree in its prime. The powerful yet rugged trunk, the stalwart limbs, the irregular forking—. now acute, now rectangular—of its branches, the twisting yet robustness of the spray, are all excellently shown. In the picture, facing page 32, of*a dead Oak stump,’ the artist has, with equal truthfulness, seized the still salient features, strong, so to speak, in death. How well this drawing exhibits the grim tenacity of this sylvan giant, which though dead is still firmly rooted to the earth, showing no weakness or decadence in its aspect, but seeming to throw up its limbs with defiant uprightness! Gilpin asks: ‘ What is more beautiful on a rugged foreground than an old tree with a hollow trunk ? or with a dead arm, a drooping bough, or a dying branch ?? In Mr. Short’s study from life of a dead Oak stump, the foreground is not rugged but soft and beautiful, for it is running water. It is the tree which is rugged, and which at once centres upon itself the admiration of the onlooker.

From the Oak it is natural to come to the Beech, and, facing page 48, in the engraving representing Beeches in ‘a flooded stream—evening,’ the most prominent figure in the foreground may be termed acharacter study. Rugged sometimes, especially inthe contortions of its roots—characters strongly represented in the famous Burnham Beeches—the Beech is most remarkable for the gracefulness and symmetry of its form. The divisions of the trunk towards the ground, somewhat like the fingers of a hand, are very peculiar, but the furrows soon disappear as the trunk goes upwards, and enables the clear, smooth stem to rise with the beautiful symmetry by which it is distinguished. It is the smooth, greyish-white skin of the Beech which has tempted visitors to the woods to engrave their names upon the bark. One prominent and striking character of the tree, besides the smoothness and beauty of its bole and limbs, is its frequent habit of forming a trunk of double columns. Oftentimes, quite close to the ground, the bole divides and carries far up aloft with graceful vigour and uprightness the two trunks, both of which, spreading outwards, form, by their ample ramifications, a head of considerable width. The Beech has always had a reputation for beauty; itis a tree, as Gilpin happily described it, ‘of picturesque fame.’ Yet, strange to say, the author of ‘ Forest Scenery,’ with an eye so quick to discern beauty, disliked the Beech, and made it the subject of some very severe criticism. He says: ‘In point of picturesque beauty I am not inclined to rank the Beech much higher than in point of utility. Its trunk, we allow, is often highly picturesque. It is studded with bold knobs and projections, and has, sometimes, a sort of irregular fluting about it, which is very charactcristic. It has another peculiarity also which is sometimes pleasing—that of a number of stems arising from the root. The bark, too, often wears a pleasant hue. It is naturally of a dingy olive; but it is always overspread, in patches, with a variety of mosses and lichens, which are commonly of a lighter tint in the upper parts and of a deep velvet-green towards the root. Its smoothness, also, contrasts agreeably with these rougher appendages. No bark tempts the lover so much to make it the depository of his mistress’s name. It conveys a happy emblem— eS Crescent illee ; crescentis amores.” ’