380 Strut?s Delicice Sylvarum. 
dian*, and of the Latin and Italian poems of Milton, and 
as a landscape-painter, but also more particularly as the 
author of Sylva Britannica, or Portraits of Forest Trees dis- 
tinguished for their Antiquity, Magnitude, or Beauty. We 
have a remark or two to make relative to this last-mentioned 
work, before we proceed to that which stands at the head of 
the present article. The two publications are of the same 
size, and of congenial character. Several, indeed, of the sub- 
jects in either work might without impropriety liawe found a 
place in the other. It is to be regretted, we think, that the 
Silva Britannica was not enlarged to double its extent, or 
more, so as to have included portraits of all the more remark- 
able trees still remaining throughout the country, — trees, we 
mean, either connected aah some historical fact or tradition, 
commemorative of some illustrious personage, or themselves 
remarkable for their size, beauty, or extraordinary growth 
and conformation, We should like to have had a complete 
collection of such trees. It is not very probable that any 
other person should now commence a work on an exactly 
similar plan ; and if it were undertaken, we much doubt 
whether it would be executed with an equal degree of taste 
and ability. Mr. Strutt’s plates are etchings oie a folio size, 
and of a very superior order. There is no journeyman’s 
work in them; but, having been executed entirely by his own 
hand, they possess the freshness, spirit, and fr eedom of ori- 
ginal sketches from the pencil of a master, and have lost 
nothing by evaporation from being transferred from the 
drawing to the copper. ‘They have the merit too — a merit 
but seldom aimed at even by painters — of depicting, and in 
most cases with great precision, the true characteristic features 
of each species intended to be represented. The trees figured 
proclaim their own kind: they are oak trees, ash, beech, 
yew, &c., and not only so, but faithful portraits of indiadast 
specimens of each. In expressing the foliage of the oak, and 
its contorted branches, the touch of the artist is peculiarly 
happy. We happen to know that the author was strongly 
urged by several of his subscribers to extend the Silva Bri- 
tannica by the addition of some extra-numbers; and there is 
reason to believe, that had he consulted either his private 
inclination or his own pecuniary interest, he would readily 
have complied with the request. His refusal to do so is, we 
suspect, to be attributed to feelings of delicacy towards his 
subscribers. He had in the outset engaged to complete the 
* This translation of select poems from Claudian is a work of great 
merit, and by no means so well known as it deserves to be. It was ‘pub- 
lished in 1814, and sold by Messrs. Longman. 
