Strutt’s Sylva Britannica. 559 
the forests to the page before us will not displease either him 
or the reader : — 
«¢ Than a tree, a grander child earth bears not. 
What are the boasted palaces of man, ’ 
Imperial city or triumphal arch, 
To forests of immeasurable extent, 
Which Time confirms, which centuries waste not ? 
Oaks gather strength for ages ; and when at last 
They wane, so beauteous in decrepitude, 
So grand in weakness! E’en in their decay 
So venerable! °T were sacrilege t’ escape 
The consecrating touch of Time. Time watch’d 
The blossom on the parent bough; Time saw 
The acorn loosen from the spray; Time pass’d 
While, springing from its swaddling shell, yon oak, 
The cloud-crown’d monarch of our weods, by thorns 
Environ’d, ’scaped the raven’s bill, the tooth 
Of goat and deer, the schoolboy’s knife, and sprang 
A royal hero from his nurse’s arms. 
Time gave it seasons, and Time gave it years, 
Ages bestow’d, and centuries grudged not ; 
Time knew the sapling when gay summer’s breath 
Shook te the roots the infant oak, which after 
Tempests moved not. Time hollow’d in its trunk 
A tomb for centuries; and buried there 
The epochs of the rise and fall of states, 
The fading generations of the world, 
The memory of man.’ ” 
On a former occasion we expressed our regret that the folio 
edition of the work before us had not been enlarged, so as to 
have included portraits of all the more remarkable trees still 
remaining throughout the country ; and we ventured an opi- 
nion that Mr. Strutt was restrained from exceeding the ori- 
ginal limits of his work by feelings of delicacy towards his 
subscribers. Our surmises, it seems, were not far from the 
truth. ‘ The author,” we read in the preface to the present 
edition, * was entreated by several highly esteemed friends 
to add a supplement to the work, for the purpose of including 
various specimens of trees which the original limits did not 
admit of containing. But, however flattering those solicitations 
might be, his unwillingness to incur the slightest appearance 
of trespassing on the liberality of his subscribers formed an 
insuperable bar to his compliance with them.” We respect 
our author’s motives, while we lament the loss that we sus- 
tain in consequence of them. As the work, however, in this 
second edition, has now assumed a novel and somewhat 
altered guise, we do trust that he will so far comply with the 
wishes of his friends as to add to it another volume. ‘To this 
plan not the most scrupulous delicacy can frame a reasonable 
objection. Ere long, therefore, we hope to meet Mr. Strutt 
oOo 4 
