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PART II. 



REVIEWS. 



Art. I. Delicice Sylvdrum ; or Grand and Romantic Forest 

 Scenery in England and Scotland. Drawn from Nature and 

 etched by Jacob George Strutt, Author of the Sylva Britdnnica, 

 London. Fol. Nos. I. and II. 



The 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 opinion 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 Gardenings a Practical Treatise, Pub- 

 lished by Dodsley, 1785. 



