MR. WILDER'S EULOGY. 



was never a pupil in the studio of an artist; if he studied natural science in the labora- 

 tory of nature more than in the school of scientific chemists; if he enjoyed not the ad- 

 vantages of a liberal and professional education, valuable and desirable as these means of 

 improvement certainly are, yet he was at all times and everywhere a learner; and the 

 lessons of wisdom which he received, he promptl}'^ reduced to practice; a circumstance 

 which made him eminently piactical and national, a man of his own age and country. 



I will illustrate his habits of observation and study. In a walk he plucks from an 

 overhanging bough a single leaf, examines its color, form and structure; inspects it with 

 his miscroscope, and having recorded his observations, presents it to his friend, and in- 

 vites him to study it, as suggestive of some of the first principles of Rural Architecture 

 and Economy, 



Does he visit a beautiful countr}^ seat, he sketches a view of it, and of the grounds 

 about it; notes whatever is true to nature, accurate in taste, or excellent in design; and 

 from his copy a plate is engraved, and in the next number of his Horticulturist the whole 

 scene, with his valuable comments, is given to the lovers of the landscape and the garden. 



He returns from the forest. A short extract from his journal will explain the object 

 of his tour, and afford a fair specimen of the beauty and force of his style:— 



"Nature plants some trees, like the fir and the pine, in the fissures of the rock, and 

 on the edge of the precipice; she twists their boughs, and gnarls their stem.s, by storms 

 and tempests — thereby adding to their picturesque power in sublime and grand scener}^ 

 But she more often developes the beautiful in a tree of any kind, in a genial soil and clime, 

 where it stands quite alone, stretching its boughs upward freely to the sky, and outward 

 to the breeze, and even downward to the earth, almost touching her in her graceful sweep, 

 till only a glimpse of the fine trunk is to be seen at its spreading base, and the whole top 

 is one great globe of floating and waving luxuriance, giving us as perfect an idea of sym- 

 metry and proportion as can be found short of the Grecian Apollo." " One would no 

 more wish to touch it with the pruning knife, the axe or the saw, (unless to remove a de- 

 cayed branch,) than to give a nicer curve to the rainbow, or to add freshness to the dew- 

 drops." 



This descrvptioH, for beauty, power of diction, and for fullness of nature, not only har- 

 monizes with the pictures, but even rivals the finest touches of the pencils of Claude, 

 Poussin, Salvator Rosa, or any other great master of landscape. 



He makes a tour of New England, and stops at New Haven, the city of elms. He 

 walks out from the Tontine upon the green, admires those grateful shades, their majestic 

 form, their gracefully waving bo-ughs, and they revive in his mind the history of the elm, 

 its varied use for fuel, timber, and shade. He arrives at Hartford. The first object of 

 his attention is the " Charter Oak." He hastens to visit it, stands before it, all filled 

 with veneration, exclaims, with the bard of Manma, translated by Dry den, 



" Jove's own Iree, 

 Thai holds ihe world lu. sovereignly I" 



He sketches it, gives you a copy of it in his " Landscape Gardening," together with 

 his classical and scientific account of the king of th« American forest. He journeys up 

 the beautiful valley of the Connecticut to Stockbridge, Ma.ssachusetts, whose streets are 

 lined with the sugar maple, " clean, cool, smooth and un)brageous." He there increases 

 his love and admiration of the American maple, the beauty of who.se vernal bloom is 

 surpassed only by the unrivalled hues of its autumnal foliage, dyed with the tints of de 

 parting day. 



By scenes like these, and by scientific reflection thereon, he prepares himself 



