504 



THE POETRY OF TREES. 



up them, (once more a schoolboy,) — would make 

 no bones of murdering Mrs. Jeffs. In what one 

 imaginable attribute, that it ought to possess, is 

 a Tree, pray, deficient? Light, shade, shelter, 

 coolness, freshness, music, all the colors of the 

 rainbow, dew and dreams dropping through their 

 umbrageous twilight at eve or morn — dropping di- 

 rect — soft, sweet, soothing, and restorative, from 

 heaven. Without Trees, how, in the name of 

 wonder, could we have had houses, ships, bridges, 

 easy chairs, or coffins, or almost any single one of 

 the necessaries, conveniences, or comforts of life ? 

 Without Trees, one man might have been born 

 with a silver spoon in his mouth, but not another 

 with a wooden ladle. 



Tree by itself Tree, "such tents the patriarchs 

 loved" — Ipse nemus — " the brotherhood of Trees" 

 — the Grove, the Coppice, the Wood, the Forest — 

 dearly, and after a different fashion, do we love 

 you all! And love you all we shall, while our 

 dim eyes can catch the glimmer, our dull ears the 

 murmur, of the leaves — or our imagination hear 

 at midnight, the far-off swing of old branches 

 groaning in the tempest. Oh! is not Merry also 

 Sylvan England? And has not Scotland, too, her 

 old pine forests, blackening up her Highland 

 mountains ? Are not many of her rivered valleys 

 not unadorned with woods — her braes beautiful 

 with their birkiu shaws ? And does not stately 

 ash or sycamore, tower above the kirk-spire, in 

 many a quiet glen, overshadowing the humble 

 house of God, " the dial-stone aged and green," 

 and all the" deep-sunk, sinking, or upright array of 

 grave-stones, beneath which 



" The rude forefathers of the Hamlet gleep? " 



We have the highest respect for the ghost of 

 Dr. Johnson ; yet were we to meet it by moon- 

 light, how should we make it hang its head on the 

 subject of Scottish Trees! Look there, you old, 

 blind, blundering blockhead! That Pine Forest 

 ts twenty miles square! Many million trees, 

 there, have at least five hundred arms each, 6ix 

 tirae6 as thick as ever your body was, sir, when 

 you were at your very fattest in Bolt Court. As 

 for their trunks — some straight as cathedral pil- 

 lars — some flung all away in their strength across 

 cataracts; some without a twig till your eye 

 meets the hawk's nest diminished to a black bird's, 

 and some overspread, from within a man's height 

 of the mossy 6ward, with fantastic branches, cone- 

 covered, and green as emerald — what say you, 

 you great, big, lumbering, unwieldly ghost you, to 

 trunks like these ? And are not the Forests of 

 Scotland the most forgiving that ever were self- 

 sown, to suffer you to flit to and fro. haunting un- 

 harmed their ancient umbrage ? Yet — Doctor — 

 you were a fine old Tory every inch of you, for all 

 that, my boy — so come glimmering away with you 

 into the gloom after us— don't stumble over the 

 roots— we smell a still at work—- and neither you 

 nor I— shadow nor substance, (but, prithee, why 

 so wan, good Doctor? Prithee, why so wan?) 



can be much the worse, eh, of a caulker of Glen- 

 livat ? 



Every man of landed property, that lies fairly 

 out of arm's length of a town, whether free or 

 copyhold, be its rental above or below forty shil- 

 lings a-year, should be a planter. Even an old 

 bachelor, who has no right to become the father 

 of a child, is not only free, but in duty bound to 

 plant a Tree. Unless his organ of philo-progeni- 

 tiveness be small indeed, as he looks at the young, 

 tender plants in his own nursery-garden, his heart 

 will yearn toward them with all the longing and 

 instinctive fondness of a father. As he beholds 

 them putting forth the tender buds of hope, he 

 will be careful to preserve them from all blight — 

 he will " teach the young idea how to shoot" — 

 and, according to their different natures, he will 

 send them to different places to complete their 

 education, according as they are ultimately in- 

 tended for the church, the bar, or the navy. The 

 old gentleman will be surprised to see how soon 

 his young plants have grown as tall as himself, 

 even though he should be an extraordinary mem- 

 ber of the Six Feet Club. An oak sapling, of 

 some five or six springs, shall measure with him 

 on his stocking-soles — and a larch, considerably 

 younger, laugh to shake its pink cones far over 

 his wig. But they are all dutiful children — never 

 go straying from home after youthful follies — 

 and standing together in beautiful bands, and in 

 majestic masses, they will not suffer the noon-day 

 sun to smite their father's head, nor the winds ol 

 heaven to " visit his face too roughly." 



People are sometimes prevented from planting 

 trees from the slowness of their growth. What a 

 mistake that is! People might just as well be 

 prevented from being wed, because a man-child 

 takes one and twenty years to get out of his mi- 

 nority, and a woman child, except in hot climates, 

 is rarely marriageable before fifteen. Not the 

 least fear in the world, that Tommy and Thomas- 

 ine and the Tree will grow up fast enough — wither 

 at the top — and die! It is a strange fear to feel 

 — a strange complaint to utter — that any one thing 

 in this world, animate or inanimate, is of too slow 

 growth ; for the nearer to its perfection, the nearer 

 to its decay. 



No man, who enjoys good health, at fifty or even 

 sixty, would hesitate, if much in love, to take a 

 wife, on the ground that he could have no hope or 

 chance of seeing his numerous children all grow 

 up into hobbledehoys and Priscilla Tomboys. Get 

 your children first, and let them grow at their lei- 

 sure afterwards. In like manner, let no man. 

 Bachelor or Benedict, be his age beyond the limit 

 of conversational confession, fear to lay out a nur- 

 sery-garden — to fill it with young seedlings, and 

 thenceforward to keep planting away, up hill and 

 down brae, all the rest of his life. 



Besides, in every stage, how interesting, both a 

 wood and sap tree, and a flesh and blood child! 

 Look at pretty ten-year old, rosy cheeked, golden- 

 haired Mary, gazing with all the blue brightness 



