70 Gilpin's foeest scenery. 



We cannot avoid the conviction that^ for some reason, 

 our Author entertained a prejudice against the Beech, and 

 such a feeling is strange in so keen a lover of Nature. 

 We have elsewhere expressed our own opinion of this de- 

 lightful tree ; and it may not, perhaps, be inappropriate if 

 in this place we make from that opinion the following 

 quotation : — ' In the largest of our woodland Beech 

 growths the striking and impressive character of the Tree 

 can, of course, he most effectively recognized. The 

 straight pillared stem, smooth and grey, rises with lofty 

 symmetry, sometimes in a single column, sometimes in 

 double columns, and, far up aloft, spreads out against 

 the sky a canopy of graceful foliage. The beautiful and 

 impressive character of the Tree is best seen, however, in 

 a Beech wood ; for the Beech allows no rivals, and even 

 underwood and turf are banished from the shade of its 

 branches. Looking up, then, in a great Beech wood 

 from the withered leaves, which are strewn in profusion 

 on the ground, giving it a character of lifelessness, and 

 letting the eye wander amidst the forest of symmetrical 

 trunks carried up aloft with surpassing grace and beauty 

 until they spread into the heaven of leafiness above, one 

 is strangely moved by the spectacle ; for the wealth of 

 verdure, burnished into silvery gloss by the play of sun- 

 light, tells us of the unseen but patent forces which 

 beneath our feet, where the soil is embrowned by dead 

 leaves, are moving silently upwards through the stately 

 columns, carrying to their summits the life and vigour 

 which give symmetry to stem and branch, grace to clus- 



