TREES IN ASSEMBLAGES. 157 



impression. Indeed, the grandeur and solemnity of a 

 magnificent wood are hardly surpassed by anything else 

 in nature. A very slight sound, during a calm, in one of 

 these deep woods, has a distinctness almost startling, 

 like the ticking of a clock 1 in a vast hall These feeble 

 sounds afford us a more vivid sense of the magnitude of 

 the place, and of its deep solemnity, than louder sounds, 

 which are attended with a confused reverberation. The 

 foliage, spread out in a continuous mass over our heads, 

 produces the effect of a ceiling, and represents the roof of 

 a vast temple. 



In an open grove we experience different sensations. 

 Here pleasantness and cheerfulness are combined, though 

 a sense of grandeur may be excited by some noble trees. 

 In a grove, the trees in general are well developed, having 

 room enough to expand to their normal proportions. We 

 often see their shadows cast separately upon the ground, 

 which is green beneath them as in an orchard. If we 

 look upon this assemblage from an adjoining eminence, 

 we observe a variety of outlines by which we may iden- 

 tify the different species. A wild wood is sometimes 

 converted into a grove by clearing it of its undergrowth 

 and removing the smaller trees. Such an assemblage 

 displays but few of the charms of a natural grove. A 

 cleared wild wood yields shade and coolness; but the 

 individual trees always retain their gaunt and imperfect 



Artificial plantations display the characters of a grove ; 

 but all spontaneous growths are bordered and more or 

 less interspersed with underwood. Hence a limited 

 growth of forest, like a wooded island, surrounded by 

 water or by a meadow, surpasses any artificial plantation 

 as a picturesque and beautiful feature of landscape. The 

 painter finds in these spontaneous collections of wood an 

 endless variety of grouping and outline for the exercise 



