48 FORMS AND EXPRESSION OF TREES. 



normal varieties in the shape of trees. Others may be 

 termed accidental, like those of the tall and imperfectly 

 developed trees, which have been cramped by growing 

 in dense assemblages, and of the pollards that have is- 

 sued from the stumps and roots of other trees. 



Trees are generally wanting in that kind of beauty 

 which we admire in a vase, or an elegant piece of 

 furniture. They have more of those qualities we look 

 for in a picture and in the ruder works of architecture. 

 Nature is neither geometrical nor precise in her delinea- 

 tions. She betrays a design in all her works, but never 

 casts two objects in the same mould. She does not paint 

 by formulas, nor build by square and compass, nor plant 

 by a bine and dibble ; she takes no note of formal arrange- 

 ments, or of the " line of beauty," or of direct adaptation 

 of means to ends. She shakes all things together, as in a 

 dice-box, and as they fall out there they remain, growing 

 crooked, .or straight, mean or magnificent, beautiful or 

 ugly, but adapted by the infinite variety of their forms 

 and dispositions to the wants and habits of all creatures. 



The beauty of trees is something that exists chiefly in 

 our imagination. We admire them for their evident 

 adaptation to purposes of shade and shelter. Some of 

 them we regard as symbols or images of a fine poetic 

 sentiment. Such are the slender willows and poplars, 

 that remind us of grace and refinement, becoming the 

 emblems of some agreeable moral affection, or the embod- 

 iment of some striking metaphor. Thus Coleridge per- 

 sonifies the white birch as the " Lady of the Woods," and 

 the oak" by other poets is called the monarch, and the 

 ash the Venus of the forest. The weeping willow, 

 beautiful on account of its graceful spray, becomes still 

 more so when regarded as the emblem of sorrow. The 

 oak, in like manner, is interesting as the symbol of 

 strength and fortitude. A young fir-tree always reminds 



