44 Gilpin's li-oBEST scenery. 



lines, that is the most useful in bearing burdens : 

 but that whose sinews are twisted and spirally 

 combined. This too is the most picturesque. 

 Trees under these circumstances generally take 

 the most pleasing forms. 



Now the Oak, perhaps, acquires these different 

 modes of growth from the different strata through 

 which it passes. In deep, rich soils, where the 

 root meets no obstruction, the stem, we suppose, 

 grows stately and erect : but when the root meets 

 with a rocky stratum, a hard and gravelly bed, or 

 any other difficulty, through which it is obliged, 

 in a zigzag course, to pick its way, and struggle 

 for a passage, the sympathetic stem, feeling every 

 motion, pursues the same indirect course above, 

 which the root does below : and thus the sturdy 

 plant, through the means of these subterraneous 

 encounters and hardy conflicts, assumes form and 

 character, and becomes, in a due course of cen- 

 turies, a picturesque tree. 



Virgil has given us the picture of an Oak, in 

 which its principal characteristics are well touched. 



' Esculus imprimis, quae, quantum vertice ad auras 

 j'Ethereas, tantum radice in Tartara tendit 



