OCTOBER. 357 



immediately effecting a great national service, 

 by turning the attention of government to the 

 importance of planting, has left a fine monu- 

 ment of his taste and labour. Well might this 

 venerable and enthusiastic apostle of woods 

 exclaim: Here then is the true Parnassus, 

 Castalia and the Muses ;" and at every call in 

 a grove of venerable oaks, methinks I hear 

 the answer of a hundred old Druids, and the 

 bards of our inspired ancestors. In a word, so 

 charmed were poets with those natural shades, 

 that they honoured temples with the names of 

 groves, though they had not a tree about them. 

 In walks and shades of trees poets have com- 

 posed verses, which have animated men to 

 heroic and glorious actions. Here orators have 

 made their panegyrics, historians their grave 

 relations ; and the profound philosophers have 

 loved to pass their lives in repose and contem- 

 plation." 



Who has walked in woods, that has not felt 

 them become to him as superb temples, filling 

 him with a desire 



To contemplate and worship Him whose mind 

 Stirs in the stilly night-like solitude, 

 Or breathes in whispers, on the gentle wind, 

 Through vast cathedral groves and leaves a calm behind. 



MILLHOUSE. 



