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lection of tall naked poles, with a few 

 ragged boughs near the top; above — one 

 uniform rusty cope, seen through decayed 

 and decaying sprays and branches; below 

 —the soil parched and blasted with the 

 baleful droppings; hardly a plant or a 

 blade of grass, nothing that can giv r e an 

 idea of life, or vegetation. Even its gloom 

 is without solemnity ; it is only dull and 

 dismal; and what light there is, like that 

 of hell, 



" Serves only to discover scenes of woe, 

 Regions of sorrow, doleful shades." 



In a grove where the trees have had room 

 to spread (and in that case I am very far from 

 excluding the Scotch fir or any of the pines) 

 the gloom has a character of solemn gran- 

 deur; that grandeur arises from the broad 

 and varied canopy over head, from th« 

 small number, and great size of the trunks 

 by which the canopy is supported*, and 



* This circumstance seems to have struck Virgil in the 

 case of a single tree : 



Media ipsa, ingentem sustinet umbram, 



