SOUECHS 01' PICT PEE SQUENESS IN TKBES. 23 



a beautiful circumstance, and its application 

 equally useful in landscape. The withered top just 

 breaks tlie lines of an eminence ! the cv/rtailed 

 trunk discovers the whole ; while the lateral 

 branches, which are vigorous and healthy in both, 

 hide any part of the lower landscape which, 

 wanting variety, is better veiled. 



For the use and beauty of the withered top and 

 curtailed trunk we need only appeal to the works 

 of Salvator Eosa, in many of which we find them 

 of great use. Salvator had often occasion for an 

 object on his foregrounds as large as the trunk 

 of a tree, when the whole tree together in its full 

 state of grandeur would have been an incum- 

 brance to him. A young tree, or a bush, might 

 probably have served his purpose with regard to 

 composition ; but such dwarfs and striplings could 

 not have preserved the dignity of his subject like 

 the ruins of a noble tree. These splendid remnants 

 of decaying grandeur speak to the imagination in 

 a style of eloquence which the stripling cannot 

 reach; they record the history of some storm, 

 some blast of lightning, or other great event, 

 which transfers its grand ideas to the landscape. 



