viii 



INTRODUCTrON. 



wave over his liead, whilst wandering in his hereditary 

 domains, of the illustrious ancestors who may have seen it 

 planted ; and by the peasant who recalls, as he looks on it 

 in his way to his daily labours, the sports of his infancy round 

 its venerable trunk, and regards it at once as his chronicler 

 and land-mark. 



To perpetuate the remembrance and preserve the charac- 

 teristics of some of these objects, in themselves so interesting, 

 is the design of the Sylva Britannica : in the descrip- 

 tions, therefore, which accompany the plates, it will be 

 found, that although the minutia? of scientific detail and 

 botanical definitions are omitted, as unnecessary, and even 

 misplaced, in a work professing to be chiefly of a pictorial 

 description, every circumstance of local connexion, or tra- 

 ditional interest, has been carefully attended to ; and the 

 Author will be sufficiently gratified, should his performance 

 impart to the minds of those who may favour it with their 

 attention, even a small portion of the pleasure which he 

 has himself experienced, whilst haunting the woods and 

 forests, intent on delineating those varieties and pecu- 

 liarities of their noblest productions, which he has endea- 

 voured to transfer to the following representations ; with as 

 much of the spirit of Nature as he could command, and 

 with all the truth which minute remark and faithful imita- 

 tion may, hopes, lay claim to, without hazarding the 

 imputation of undue presumption. 



