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the freshness, variety, and lightness of their 

 foliage, as they gain in the general fulness 

 of it, and the superior size of their leaves. 



The Midsummer shoot is the first thing 

 that gives relief to the eye, after the sameness 

 of colour which immediately precedes it; 

 in many trees, and in none more than the 

 oak, the effect is singularly beautiful; the 

 old foliage forms a dark back-ground, on 

 which the new appears, relieved and de- 

 tached in all its freshness and brilliancy: 

 it is spring engrafted upon summer. This 

 effect, however, is confined to the nearer 

 objects; the great general change in all 

 vegetation is produced by the first frosts 

 of autumn : it is then that the more uniform 

 green of summer, is succeeded by a variety 

 of rich glowing tints, which so admirably 

 accord with each other, and form so splen- 

 did a mass of colouring; so superior in 

 depth and richness, to that of any other 

 part of the year. 



It has often struck me, that the whole 

 system of the Venetian colouring, parti- 

 cularly that of Giorgione and Titian, was 



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