142 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 



" Jove's own tree. 

 That holds the woods in awful sovereignty ; 

 For length of ages lasts his happy reign, 

 And lives of mortal man contend in vain. 

 Full in the midst of his own strength he stands. 

 Stretching his brawny arms and leafy hands, 

 His shade protects the plains, his head the hills commands." 



Dryden's Trans. 



" The oak," says Gilpin, " is confessedly the most pictu- 

 resque tree in itself, and the most accommodating in com- 

 position. 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 the Gothic arch ; 

 and 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 throws its arms over the purling brook or the mantling 

 pool, where it beholds 



" Its reverend image in the expanse below." 



Milton introduces it happily even in the lowest scene— 



" Hard by a cottage chimney smokes, 

 From between two aged oaks." 



The oak is not only one of the grandest and most pictu- 

 resque objects as a single tree upon a lawn, but it is equally 

 unrivalled for groups and masses. There is a breadth about 

 the lights and shadows reflected and embosomed in its 

 foliage, a singular freedom and boldness in its outline, and 

 a pleasing richness and intricacy in its huge ramification 

 of branch and limb, that render it highly adapted to these 

 purposes. Some trees, as the willow or the spiry poplar 



