62 STfrc ftegnut of 



Had Salvator Rosa been living when the great chesnut 

 was in its prime, he would have braved the dangers both 

 of land and sea to have studied its magnificent proportions, 

 for this is the tree which graces all his landscapes ; it 

 nourished in the mountains of Calabria, where he painted, 

 and there he observed it in all its forms, breaking and 

 disposing of it, in a variety of beautiful shapes, as the 

 exigences of his compositions required. But Salvator 

 Rosa was not then living, nor, perhaps, his ancestors for 

 many generations ; neither was the art of painting deve- 

 loped in Engiand ; that beautiful art, which transmits to 

 canvas the glow of an evening sky, and the effects of 

 foliage when shaken by the wind ; which embodies, within 

 the space of a few inches, an extent of many miles, with 

 mingled wood and flood, bold headlands and mountains 

 fading in the distance, or crowded cities, with their 

 palaces and schools. Even the Bayeux tapestry, which 

 chronicled, in after years, events connected with civil 

 history and domestic misery, presented merely an un- 

 graceful portraiture of passing events. 



The tree had attained nearly to its altitude at that 

 period of England's sorrows, when the fierce Penda car- 

 ried war and desolation through some of her fairest pro- 

 vinces. At this time, also, his son, being appointed 

 Governor of Mercia, resided with his wife, Eva, at 

 Glocester, in the centre of his dominions, where many 

 persecuted persons, who fled from the sword of Penda, 

 were secretly protected and relieved, for Eva was a 



