176 



GARDENS OLD A\D NEW. 



across, while the vast symmetrical mountain 

 of foliage above is tall "as the mast of 

 some great ammiral." 



It may be interesting to record what old 

 Strutt says about the tree, which he tells us 

 in his time appeared not to have reached its 

 meridian. " The waving lightness of its 

 feathered branches, dipping down towards its 

 stem, to the very ground, the straightness of 

 it.i trunk, and the redundancy of its foliage, all 

 give it a character opposite to that of antiquity 

 and fit it for the cultivated and sequestered 

 pleasure grounds which form part of the 

 domain of Earl Cowper, at Panshanger, in 

 Hertfordshire ; where it stands surrounded with 

 evergreens and lighter shrubs, of which it 

 seems at once the guardian and the pride. It 

 is igft. in circumference at 3t"t. from the 

 ground, and contains i.oooft. of timber. On 

 looking at an object at once so graceful an.l so 

 noble, raising its green head towards the skies, 

 rejoicing in the sunshine, and imbibing the 

 breath of Heaven at every pore, we cannot 

 but fed equal wonder and admiration when 

 we consider the tininess of its origin, the 

 slendenu-ss of its infant state, and the daily 

 unfolding powers of its imperceptible, yet 

 rapid, progress." The good tree-lover begins 

 his book with a description of this monster of 

 the grove, and goes on to quote Evelyn where 

 he says, "So it is that our tree, like man, 

 whose inverted symbol he is, being sown in 

 corruption, rises in glory, and by little and 

 little ascending into one hard erect stem of 

 comely dimensions, beneath a solid tower, as 

 it were. And that this, which but lately a 

 single ant could easily have borne to his little 

 cavern, should now become capable of resisting 

 the fury and braving the rage of the most 

 impetuous storms inagni inclicirlc ariilicis, 

 <7j//.s/.vsv tntniii in tarn cxi^ito, et horror cst 

 consideranti." 



" Hail old patrician trees ! " may we well 

 say with Cowley when we linger in the green 

 gloom of the Panshangnr Oak and its hoary br 

 possessing each " its charm peculiar." It has always I 



f'o-u 



THE S'-'AT AND FOUNTAIN. 



' Country Life." 



others, 

 en the 



Copyright. 



THE DAIRY GAKDEN. 



pride of the English gentleman to love his neighbour trees, and 

 Washington Irving discovered in this the chief characteristic 



of the good old Englishman. 

 Many a time, alas ! have the 

 ancient trunk' and the young 

 hamadryad together bowed 

 beneath the stroke of need, or 

 been laid low at the caM of 

 some spendthrift necessity. 

 No such storm, most happily, 

 has ever swept through the 

 woods of Panshanger, and 

 long may the mighty oak, in 

 Ovid's words, " tower o'er its 

 subject trees, itself a grove." 

 It is right to remember, in the 

 presence of su h a giant, how 

 great a part the oak " the 

 unwedgeable and gnarled 

 oak" has played in English 

 national life as "the father 

 of ships." Old Collingwood, 

 dropping acorns into the 

 hedges, as a glorious type of 

 the Englishman, preparing in 

 the embryo 



"Tlio-,1.- sapling oaks which nt. 



Ilritantiia's call 

 Miij'it lu-avi; tlu-ir trunks nuituro 



into tlu' main, 



" Country Life." And float the bulwarks of her 



liberty." 



