38 Gilpin's forest scenery. 



cularly the mantling Vine, hanging, as I have here 

 described it, in rich festoons from bough to bough. 



The rooting also of trees is a circumstance on 

 which their beauty greatly depends. I know not 

 whether it is reckoned among the maladies of a 

 tree, to heave his root above the soil. Old trees 

 often do. But whether it be a malady or not, 

 it is certainly very picturesque. The more they 

 raise the ground around them, and the greater 

 number of radical knobs they heave up, the firmer 

 they seem to establish their footing upon the 

 earth, and the more dignity they assume. An old 

 tree rising tamely from a smooth surface (as we 

 often find it covered with earth in artificial 

 ground), loses half its effect: it does not appear 

 as the lord of the soil, but to be stuck into it, 

 and would have a still worse effect on canvas than 

 it has in Nature. 



Pliny gives us an account of the roots of certain 

 ancient Oaks in the Hercynian forest, which 

 appears rather extravagant, but which, I can 

 easily conceive, may be true. These roots, he 

 says, heave the ground upwards, in many places, 

 into lofty mounts ; and in other parts, where the 

 earth does not follow them, the bare roots rise as 



