64 SYLVA BRITANNICA. 



left bare and desolate. The old would miss it, as 

 the object that brought back to them the recol- 

 lections of their youth ; the young would lament for 

 it, as having hoped to talk of it when they should be 

 old themselves. The traveller who had heard of its 

 beauty would look for it in vain, to beguile him on 

 the road ; and the weary wanderer, returning to his 

 long-left home, would scarcely know his paternal 

 roof, when robbed of the shade of the branches 

 which he had seen wave even before his cradle. A 

 stately forest is one of the grandest sights in creation ; 

 an insulated tree one of the most beautiful. In the 

 deep recesses of a wood an aged tree commands a 

 veneration, similar to that which we are early taught 

 to feel towards the possessor of royalty, or the 

 minister of religion ; but in a hamlet, or on a green, 

 we regard it with the gentler reverence due to a 

 parent, or the affection inspired by the presence of a 

 long-tried friend. 



THE ELMS AT MONGEWELL. 



These noble trees are close to the residence of the 

 late Bishop of Durham, at Mongewell in Oxford- 

 shire, celebrated by Leland for its " faire woodes," 

 and may serve to recall to the mind of the beholder 

 Cowper's eulogium on shades so natural and de- 

 lightful. 



