22 SYLVAN WINTER. 



though dead is still firmly rooted to the earth, 

 showing no weakness or decadence in its aspect, 

 but seeming to throw up its limbs with defiant 

 uprightness ! Gilpin asks : ' What is more beau- 

 tiful on a rugged foreground than an old tree with 

 a holloiu trunk ? or with a dead arm, a drooping 

 bough, or a dying branch ? ' In Mr. Short's study 

 from life of a dead Oak stump, the foreground is 

 not rugged but soft and beautiful, for it is running 

 water. It is the tree which is rugged, and which 

 at once centres upon itself the admiration of the 

 onlooker. 



From the Oak it is natural to come to the 

 Beech, and, facing page 48, in the engraving repre- 

 senting Beeches in * a flooded stream evening,' 

 the most prominent figure in the foreground may 

 be termed a character study. Eugged sometimes, 

 especially in the contortions of its roots charac- 

 ters strongly represented in the famous Burnham 

 Beeches the Beech is most remarkable for the 

 gracefulness and symmetry of its form. The 

 divisions of the trunk towards the ground, some- 

 what like the fingers of a hand, are very peculiar, 

 but the furrows soon disappear as the trunk goes 



