24 SYLVAN WINTER. 



irregular fluting about it, which is very character- 

 istic. It has another peculiarity also which is 

 sometimes pleasing that of .a number of stems 

 arising from the root. The bark, too, often wears 

 a pleasant hue. It is naturally of a dingy olive ; 

 but it is always overspread, in patches, with a 

 variety of mosses and lichens, which are commonly 

 of a lighter tint in the upper parts and of a deep 

 velvet-green towards the root. Its smoothness, 

 also, contrasts agreeably with these rougher ap- 

 pendages. No bark tempts the lover so much 

 to make it the depository of his mistress's name. 

 It conveys a happy emblem 



' " Crescent illse ; crescentis amores." ' 

 ' But, having praised the trunk, we can praise 

 no other part of the skeleton. The branches 

 are fantastically wreathed and disproportioned, 

 twining awkwardly among each other, and run- 

 ning often into long, unvaried lines, without any 

 of that strength and firmness which we admire 

 in the Oak, or of that easy simplicity which 

 pleases in the Ash ; in short we rarely see a 

 Beech well ramified.' * Gilpin remarks, however, 

 * ' Forest Scenery,' pages G5-6. 



