SPANISH CHESTNUT. 195 



the properties of vegetable matter ; poets have derived their 

 choicest inspirations from trees ; and artists have dwelt 

 beneath them, watchful to transfer to canvas the effect 

 produced by their foliage, or their graceful and magnificent 

 proportions. 



But the chestnut, as wrote one who loved our tribe, is 

 the most stately of European trees, exceeding the oak in 

 height, and equalling it in bulk. The foliage exhibits 

 a more decided character : it is glossy and formed into 

 clusters, which are peculiarly elegant when surrounded with 

 florescent catkins. This is the tree which graces the 

 landscapes of Salvator Rosa. He studied it among the 

 mountains of Calabria in every form and attitude, breaking 

 and disposing it in a thousand different shapes, as the 

 exigences of his compositions required. And truly no 

 other tree affords such continual variety: at one time 

 rising in all its leafy majesty, in some shady recess or 

 rock-encircled nook, safe from the war of winds; at 

 another, broken and distorted on some high rock, or half- 



