Strutt’s Sylva Britannica. 551 
the sweetest subjects in the whole collection, is, we presume 
to think, almost an entire failure. Nor are we quite satisfied 
with receiving at the hands of an artist like Mr. Strutt such 
a plate as that of the King Oak in the same forest. And we 
notice the above circumstances in the hope that, should the 
work proceed to another edition, the author will discard these 
plates, at least the former of the two, and execute them afresh ; 
as we feel confident that he is capable of doing more ample 
justice to subjects which are so exactly in harmony with his 
own taste, and therefore so well calculated to call forth and 
display his peculiar excellence. * In the oaks, too, in Yard- 
ley Chase, slightly as they are etched, and destitute of the 
woodland scenery by which they are in reality surrounded, it 
was at first not without difficulty that we recognised our old 
friends and favourites, Gog and Magog. Nevertheless, there 
is a something about this plate, in its present raw unfinished 
state, which we cannot but admire, and which involuntarily 
calls to our recollection the masterly etchings of Henry 
Naiwyncx. 
We have now done with finding fault, and shall proceed 
to give some account, chiefly extracted from our author’s 
pages, of the two trees, the figures of which are here presented 
to our readers, executed, like similar ones heretofore, by the 
hand of that incomparable artist Mr. Williams. The Bull Oak 
( fig. 135.), the property of the Earl of Warwick, stands ina 
meadow within the boundary of what was formerly Wedge- 
nock Park, one of the most ancient parks in England, accord- 
ing to Dugdale, who informs us that ‘* Henry de Newburgh, 
the first Karl of Warwick after the Conquest, in imitation of 
King Henry J., who made the park at Woodstock, did im- 
park it.” The tree we should conceive to be one of the very 
oldest specimens of the kind now remaining in the country ; 
and is, we doubt not, at least coeval with the origin of the park 
in which it stands, and most probably of much higher antiquity. 
On this time-worn relic our author tells us that Mr. South 
makes the following observations, in his fourth letter on the 
growth of oaks, addressed to the Bath Society : — “ About 
twenty years before the time of his writing (1783) he had the 
* Mr. Strutt has painted both these Savernake Forest scenes on a large 
scale. We were exceedingly pleased with his picture of the King Oak, 
which we saw exhibited in Pall Mall some years ago. Whether he has yet 
disposed of it, we cannot say ; but such are its merits, at least in our eyes, 
that we wonder it did not meet with a ready purchaser on its first appear- 
ance at Somerset House. The etching now before us, pretty as it is in 
itself, is yet inferior to what we know Mr. Strutt can produce when em- 
ployed on such a subject ; and, in proof of this remark, we need only refer 
to his plate of this tree in the folio work. 
