SOUEOBS OP PICTUB.ESQUENESS IN TEBES. 29 



and ranks tliem among the picturesque beauties 

 of Nature, at another he sides with . the wood- 

 man, and brushes them away, Nay, I have 

 known him conjure up some mighty agent, as 

 guardian of his woods, who cries out, — 



' From Jove I am tlie Power 

 Of this fail- wood, and live in oaken bower. 

 I nurse my sapliiis tall ; and cleanse their rind 

 Prom vegetating filth of every kind. 

 And all ray plants I save from nightly ill 

 Of noisome winds, and blasting vapours chUL' 



Besides Mr. Lawson's catalogue of maladies 

 we might enumerate others, which are equally 

 the sources of beauty. The blasted tree has often 

 a fine effect both in natural and in artificial 

 landscape. In some scenes it is almost essential. 

 When the dreary heath is spread before the eye, 

 and ideas of wildness and desolation are re- 

 quired, what more suitable accompaniment can 

 be imagined than the blasted Oak — ragged, 

 scathed, and leafless — shooting its peeled, white 

 branches athwart the gathering blackness of some 

 rising storm ? 



Thus the poet treats it — 



