StricU*s Syha BritafiJiica. 3^1 



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. WilUams. The Bull Oak 

 (Jig. 135.), the property of the Earl of Warwick, stands in a 

 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 Earl of Warwick after the Conquest, in imitation of 

 Ring 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 Kuig 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. 



