THE OAK. 



5 



proportions in the human race. There are so many 

 points of view in which remarkable and well-known 

 trees are interesting, either for their beauty in their 

 prime, their venerableness in their decay, or the 

 associations connected with them, as linked with 

 historical recollections, that it is matter of regret 

 to think how few of those which are chronicled 

 as deserving of admiration have been secured to 

 remembrance by the pencil- Who can hear of 

 Alfred's Oak, or Chaucer's Oak, without regretting 

 that not even an outline of them is in existence, for 

 fancy to fill up, with the enthusiasm their names in- 

 spire ? But independently of all other consideration, 

 trees afford such delightful individuality, joined with 

 such exquisite variety of character, and bring with 

 them so many charming and hallowed associations 

 of liberty and peace, of rural enjoyment or con- 

 templative solitude, of the sports of childhood or 

 the meditations of old-age, — -in short, of all that can 

 refresh or exalt the soul, — that it is wonderful they 

 have not hitherto been more decided objects of 

 interest to the painter and the amateur, than merely 

 what may arise from their introduction, rather as 

 accidents in pictorial delineation, than as pictures 

 in themselves : yet what can afford more delightful 

 contrast in landscape than the giant strength of 

 the Oak, with the flexile elegance of the ash ; the 

 stately tranquillity of the elm, with the tremulous 

 lightness of the poplar; the bright and varied foliage 



