CHAP. cv. CORYLA'CE^E. FA'GUS. 1967 



necessary, nothing answers our purpose like the beech. But, at present, we 

 are not considering the beech in composition, but only as an individual ; and 

 in this light it is in which we chiefly conceive it as an object of disapprobation. 



" We should not conclude our remarks on the beech without mentioning its 

 autumnal hues. In this respect it is often beautiful. Sometimes it is dressed 

 in modest brown, but generally in glowing orange ; and in both dresses its 

 harmony with the grove is pleasing. About the end of September, when the 

 leaf begins to change, it makes a happy contrast with the oak, whose foliage 

 is yet verdant. Some of the finest oppositions of tint which, perhaps, the 

 forest can furnish arise from the union of oak and beech. We often see a 

 wonderful effect from this combination : and yet, accommodating as its leaf is 

 in landscape, on handling, it feels as if it were fabricated with metallic rigour. 

 In its autumnal state, it almost crackles : ' Leni crepitabat bractea vento." 

 For this reason, I suppose, as its rigour gives it an elastic quality, the common 

 people in France and Switzerland use it for their beds. I have dwelt the 

 longer on the beech, as, notwithstanding my severity, it is a tree of picturesque 

 fame ; and I did not choose to condemn it without giving my reasons. It has 

 acquired its reputation, I suppose, chiefly from its having a peculiar character ; 

 and this, with all its defects, it certainly has. I may add also, that, if objects 

 receive merit from their associated, as well as from their intrinsic, qualities, the 

 dry soil and salubrious air in which the beech generally flourishes, give it a 

 high degree of estimation." (Gifp. For. Seen., vol. i. p. 50.) 



" The spray of the beech," Gilpin continues, " observes the same kind of alter- 

 nacy as that of the elm ; but it -^^^ s *^ 1879 



shoots in angles still more acute 

 (fig. 1879.); the distance between 

 each twig is wider ; and it forms 

 a kind of zigzag course. We 

 esteem the beech also, in some de- 

 gree, a pendent tree, as well as the ash ; but there is a wide difference between 

 them. The ash is a light airy tree, and its spray hangs in loose elegant fo- 

 liage; but the hanging spray of the beech (Jig. 1880.), in old trees especially, 

 is often twisted, and intermingled 

 disagreeably; and has a perplexed 

 matted appearance. The whole 

 tree gives us something of the idea 

 of an entangled head of bushy hair, 

 from which, here and there, hangs a 

 disorderly lock ; while the spray of 

 the ash, like hair neither neglected 



nor finically nice, has nothing squa- ^'^^ 1880 



lid in it, and yet hangs in loose and easy curls." (Ibid., p. 114.) If an ordi- 

 nary old beech tree gives the idea of an entangled head of hair, the inoscu- 

 lated beech at Westbury (figs. 1881. and 1884.), may be compared to a 

 head of hair affected with the plica polonica. 



On Gilpin's observations on the beech, Sir T. D. Lauder justly observes, 

 that they afford " one of the instances in which the author's love for the art 

 of representing the objects of nature with the pencil, and his associations with 

 the pleasures of that art, have very much led him astray. We are disposed to 

 go along with him in a great measure, so far as we, like him, draw our asso- 

 ciations with this tree from the same source. But we conceive we have much 

 the advantage of him, in being able to indulge in the pleasures arising from the 

 contemplation of a noble beech as one of the most magnificent objects of 

 God's fair creation. Some of the very circumstances which render it un- 

 picturesque, or, in other words, which render it an unmanageable subjectx5\ 

 art, highly contribute to render it beautiful. The glazed surface of the/IeV '* 

 which brightly reflects the sun's rays, and the gentle emotions of lighf/if Ve 

 may venture so to express ourselves, which sometimes steal over th/e surface ^3 

 of its foliage with the breathing of the balmy breeze, although difficult or ' 



