38 



SYLVA BKITANNICA. 



Returning from his sweltering summer task. 



To tend the new-mown grass, or raise the sheaves. 



Along the western slope of yon gay hill. 



Shall stop to tell his listening sons how far 



She stretch'd around her thick-leaved ponderous boughs, 



And measure out the space they shadowed." 



Davy. 



THE GREENDALE OAK. 

 There is, perhaps, no spot in England where once 

 were to be found so many ancient and magnificent 

 Oaks as in the Park of Welbeck, in Nottinghamshire, 

 one of the seats of his Grace the Duke of Portland ; 

 insomuch that Mr. Rooke, a fellow of the Anti- 

 quarian Society, and a great lover of forest sub- 

 jects, thought them worthy, forty years ago, of a 

 detailed account, wherein he gave the charac- 

 teristics of many which have now laid their leafy 

 honours low. But the Greendale Oak, however, 

 still remains, little altered in its general aspect by 

 the lapse of half a century since it was described 

 as a ruin. In the year 1724, a road-way was 

 cut through its venerable trunk, higher than the 

 entrance to Westminster Abbey, and sufficiently 

 capacious to permit a carriage and four horses to 

 pass through it. A print of it was published at that 

 time, in which it scarcely varies from its present 

 appearance, excepting that the artist has sought to 

 heighten the effect by choosing the moment when 

 one of the old-fashioned equipages of the day, with 

 its four long-tailed appendages was passing through 



