214 RIVERSIDE LETTERS xxvn 



I have several wych elms in my garden, 

 three of them on the edge of the river, 

 over which their branches hang and bend 

 down in the most graceful manner. The 

 foliage and habit of this tree is excessively 

 beautiful, a great contrast to that of the 

 ordinary hedge-row elm, which has been 

 characterised by Professor Ruskin as " sticking 

 its elbows out in an awkward fashion." The 

 leaves are longer and more pointed than those 

 of the common elm, and the branches have a 

 tendency to weep. This is the tree which 

 Gainsborough so frequently introduces into 

 his backgrounds, and which he renders by a 

 flimsy conventional sort of execution which 

 is familiar to all lovers of his works. At 

 times his rendering of the tree is objectionable 

 from its extreme carelessness, but it is never 

 without a distinct indication of the character 

 of the tree intended to be represented. 



Until I had been to Sudbury, his birthplace, 

 in Suffolk, I never gave Gainsborough credit 

 for much attempt at truth to nature in the 



