CHAP. I. AS COMPONENT PARTS OF GENERAL SCENERY. 207 



comes to read over what he has written, and finds some part of it obscure, or 

 of doubtful construction, he is obliged to have recourse to his grammatical 

 knowledge. 



One of the many difficulties we have had to contend with, in getting the 

 drawings and engravings of trees prepared for this work, is, the tendency, both 

 of draughtsmen and engravers, to show here and there in their portraits, and 

 sometimes, indeed, throughout the whole portraits, the distinct shapes of 

 the individual leaves. This is just as bad as it would be, in making a drawing 

 of a house, to give the distinct shapes of the bricks. It is true, that the 

 surface of a tree is composed of leaves, as a house is composed of bricks ; 

 but our knowledge of these facts is not the result of our looking at the tree 

 or house at a distance as a whole, or as a mere mass of light, shade, and 

 colour, but of knowledge of another kind, quite otherwise acquired. Now, 

 if the artist would only bear constantly in mind, that he is not required to 

 convey, in his picture of the object represented, more knowledge than what a 

 person who knew nothing of its nature might acquire by looking at it from 

 a distance, he could not fail to succeed. The very expression, " Art," im- 

 plies that the ordinary manner of conveying ideas is not to be adopted ; 

 and to show that a tree is composed of leaves, or a house built of bricks, 

 by giving definite figures of the one or the other, is taking a license which 

 robs art of all its charms. 



It may be remarked here, that the touch of young trees is in no case so 

 powerfully marked and characteristic in nature as that of old trees, for reasons 

 familiar to every gardener, and which it may be well to notice here for the 

 sake of artists. We have already said that the touch is formed by the cluster- 

 ing of the leaves at the extremities of the shoots. Now, as the terminating 

 shoots of all young trees are chiefly or entirely of one year's growth, they, of 

 course, are long, and terminate in a very few leaves, placed alternately or 

 otherwise, round the shoot or axis, and at some distance, often an inch or 

 more, from each other. Such leaves can never form those striking clusters 

 which are so conspicuous in most old trees; particularly in the oak, the 

 starry touch of which, and especially that of the Quercus pedunculata, which 

 is very different from that of Quercus sessilinora, is well known to every 

 artist. The terminating shoots of old trees are generally shoots which grow 

 only an inch or two, or, perhaps, not so much, every year ; and, consequently, 

 according to the manner in which trees grow, what is only a single leaf in the 

 young tree of ten years' growth, is, in the spray, or terminal branches, of the old 

 tree, a spur of several years' growth ; that is, it is a spur or shoot of half an inch 

 or more in length, protruding from the other shoot, and terminating in a clus- 

 ter of leaves, perhaps half a dozen or a dozen, all radiating from the same very 

 short axis. These radiating leaves form the touch. Any one may prove this by 

 comparing a young oak tree with an old one. Notwithstanding the great 

 difference between the touch of an old tree and a young tree of the same 

 species, there is a certain distinctive character of touch even in young trees, 

 and much more so in some species than in others ; a horsechestnut, for in- 

 stance, whether young or old, has a very distinct character of touch, from the 

 large size and marked form of its leaves : so have all other trees having large 

 leaves, and most of those having compound leaves, such a? the robinias, ashes, 

 elders, &c. 



It may not be irrelevant to observe that there is as great a difference between 

 the character of the ramification of an old tree and that of a young one, as 

 there is between the character of their touch. There is a certain degree of 

 sameness in the disposition of the branches of all young trees, from their 

 tendency upwards, and perhaps still more from their being so fully clothed 

 with leaves. Old trees, on the other hand, have generally a majority of their 

 branches in horizontal or very oblique directions, and they are never so fully 

 covered with leaves and spray as is the case with young trees. As a result of 

 what we have stated, the general forms of young trees present a certain degree 

 of sameness; while in old trees of distinct species there is generally a very ■ 



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