THE OAK. 7 



its feathered branches, dipping down, towards its 

 stem, to the very ground, the straightnessofits 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 nineteen feet in circumference at three feet 

 from the ground, and contains one thousand feet 

 of timber. On looking at an object at once so 

 graceful and so noble, raising its green head to- 

 wards the skies, rejoicing in the sun-shine, and 

 imbibing the breath of Heaven at every pore, we 

 cannot but feel equal wonder and admiration when 

 we consider the tininess of its origin, the slender- 

 ness of its infant state, and the daily unfolding 

 powers of its imperceptible, yet rapid, progress. " So 

 it is," says Evelyn, that great and good man, and 

 most accomplished scholar, whose name it is de- 

 lightful to mention with the respect due to it, in 

 the very outset of a work connected with the Sylvan 

 subjects, which he so much enjoyed and so ably 

 illustrated ; " 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, becometh 

 a solid tower, as it were. And that this which but 



