( '39 ) 



from this account, was a tree of pi&urefque 

 beauty. A flrait flem, of forty or fifty feet, 

 let it's head be what it will, can hardly pro- 

 duce a pidlurefque form. When we admired 

 the flone-pine, we fuppofed it's flem to take 

 a fweeping line; and to be broken alfo with 

 flumps, or decayed branches. 



Clofe by the gate of the water-walk, at 

 Magdalen college in Oxford, grew an oak, 

 which perhaps flood there a faplin, when 

 Alfred the great founded the univerfity. This 

 period only includes a fpace of nine hundred 

 years, which is no great age for an oak. It 

 is a difficult matter indeed to afcertain the age 

 of a tree. The age of a caflle, or abbey is 

 the objec~l of hiflory. Even a common houfe 

 is recorded by the family, that built it. All 

 thefe objeds arrive at maturity in their youth, 

 if I may fo fpeak. But the tree gradually 

 compleating it's growth, is not worth record- 

 ing in the early part of it's exiflence. It is 

 then only a common tree ; and afterwards 

 when it becomes remarkable for it's age, the 

 memory of it's youth is forgotten. This tree 

 however can almofl produce hiflorical evidence 



for 



