PART IL 
REVIEWS. 
Art. I. Delicie Sylvarum; or Grand and Romantic Forest 
Scenery in England and Scotland. Drawn from Nature and 
etched by Jacob George Strutt, Author of the Sylva Britinnica. 
London. Fol. Nos. I. and II. 
Tue forest scenery of Great Britain constitutes one of the 
noblest ornaments of our island, and one, moreover, of that 
peculiar kind, which it is least within the power of art to 
create suddenly and at once. Stately edifices may be erected, 
gardens laid out and enriched with the choicest gifts of Flora, 
fountains and expansive lakes may be formed and brought to 
perfection in the space of a comparatively short time, by any 
one who, together with the inclination for such undertakings, 
possesses the command of wealth: but ages and generations 
must pass over before a single oak tree can arrive even at 
maturity, much less at that stage of growth, or rather of 
decay, in which its genuine beauty and magnificence are best 
developed. We apprehend that the age of our venerable 
stag-headed oaks is much under-rated by the generality even 
of intelligent persons. As to the opmion so commonly 
broached, that a oak is a hundred years in coming to per- 
fection, a hundred in what may be called the vigour of life, 
and another hundred in decay, it is, we feel confident, a mere 
vulgar error, and does not hold true in any one part of the 
assertion. The Tortworth Chestnut (of whose existence as a 
large and notable tree so far back as the reign of King Stephen 
there is historical record), it has been calculated, is not less 
than eleven hundred years old. “ And if we consider,” 
says an intelligent writer *, “ the quick growth of the chest- 
nut compared with that of the oak, and at the same time the 
inferior bulk of the Tortworth Chestnut to the Cowthorpe (see 
Vol. I. p. 247. fig. 102.), the Bentley, and the Boddington 
Oaks, may we not venture to infer, that the existence of these 
truly venerable trees commenced some centuries prior to the 
_* See Planting and Ornamental Gardening, « Practical Treatise. Pub- 
lished by Dodsley, 1785. 
