580 StruWs Delicice Si/lvdrum, 



dian *, and of the Latin and Italian poems of Milton, and 

 as a landscape-painter, but also more particularly as the 

 author of Sylva Britdnnica, 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 have found a 

 place in the other. It is to be regretted, we think, that the 

 Sylva Britdnnica 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 with 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 of 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 freedom 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 individual 

 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 Sylva Bri- 

 tdnnica 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. 



