90 gilpin's fobest scenery. 



The "Weeping Willow is the only one of its 

 tribe that is beautiful. Botanists, I believe, 

 enumerate sixteen species of the "Willow. Some 

 of them I have seen attain a very remarkable 

 size. I remember seeing one, in a meadow near 

 Witham, in Essex, which spread over a space of 

 ground measuring twenty-nine paces. But, in 

 general, all the trees of this sort are of straggling 

 ramification, and without any of that elegant- 

 streaming form which we admire in the "Weep- 

 ing "Willow. I should rarely therefore advise 

 their use in painting, except as pollards to cha- 

 racterize a marshy country, or to mark, in a 

 second distance, the winding banks of a heavy, 

 low-sunk river, which could not otherwise be 

 noticed. Some Willows indeed I have thought 

 beautiful, and fit to appear in the decoration 

 of any rural scene. The kind I have most ad- 

 mired has a small narrow leaf, and wears a 

 pleasant, light, sea-green tint, which mixes agree- 

 ably with foliage of a deeper hue. I am not ac- 

 quainted with the botanical name of this species, 

 but I believe the botanists call it the Salix 

 alba. 



