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If we turn from animal to vegetable na- 

 ture, many of the most beautiful flowers 

 have a high degree of symmetry ; so much 

 so, that their colours appear to be laid on 

 after a regular and finished design: but 

 beauty is so much the prevailing charac- 

 ter of flowers, that no one seeks for any 

 thing picturesque among them. In trees, 

 on the other hand, every thing appears so 

 loose and irregular, that symmetry seems 

 out of the question; yet still the same 

 analogy subsists. A beautiful tree, con- 

 sidered in point of form only, must have 

 a certain correspondence of parts, and a 

 comparative regularity * and proportion; 



* Cowley has very accurately enumerated the chief 

 qualities of beauty, in his description of what he considers 

 as one of the most beautiful of trees, — the lime. He has 

 not forgot symmetry in the catalogue of its charms, though 

 it is probable that few readers will agree with him in ad- 

 miring the degree, or the style of it, which is displayed in 

 the lime : but exact symmetry in all things was then as 

 extravagantly in fashion, as it is now (perhaps too violently) 

 in' disgrace. 



