78 



qualities. There certainly are a great va- 

 riety of pleasing forms and proportions in 

 trees, and different men have different pre- 

 dilections, just as they have with respect to 

 their own species ; but I never knew any 

 person, who, if he observed at all, was 

 riot struck with the gracefulness and ele- 

 gance of a tree, whose proportion was ra- 

 ther tall, whose stem had an easy sweep, 

 but which returned again in such a manner 

 that the whole appeared completely poised 

 and balanced, and whose boughs were in 

 some degree pendent, but towards their 

 extremities made a gentle curve upwards : 

 if to such a form you add fresh and tender 

 foliage anxl bark, you have every quality 

 assigned to beauty. 



In the last chapter I described the pro- 

 cess by which a beautiful artificial object 

 becomes picturesque: I will now shew the 

 similar effect of the same kind of process 

 in natural objects ; and more fully to illus- 

 trate the subject, will compare at the same 

 moment the effect of that process, on ani- 



