THE GHESNUT. 



91 



does Evelyn describe the effects of the lawless winds 

 which, on the 26th November, 1 703, levelled at once 

 two thousand noble denizens of his beloved woods to 

 the earth, almost within sight of his own dwelling. 

 " In the mean while," says he, " as the fall of a very 

 aged oak, giving a crack like thunder, has been often 

 heard at many miles distance, constrained though I 

 often am to fell them with reluctance, I do not at any 

 time remember to have heard the groans of those 

 nymphs, grieving to be dispossessed of their ancient 

 habitations, without some emotion and pity. Me- 

 thinks that I still hear, sure I am that I still feel, the 

 dismal groans of our forests ; that late dreadful hurri- 

 cane having subverted so many thousands of goodly 

 oaks, prostrating the trees, laying them in ghastly 

 postures, like whole regiments, fallen in battle by 

 the sword of the conqueror, and crushing all that 

 grow beneath them." There is one reflection that 

 the sight of a tree thus laid low by Him whose 

 " wind bloweth where it listeth," must suggest to 

 the religious mind, that whether it "fall toward the 

 south or toward the north, in the place where the 

 tree falleth, there shall it lie ; " and if we bring this 

 reflection properly home to ourselves, and to our own 

 eternal state, as fixed on the same irrevocable prin- 

 ciple, we may indeed congratulate ourselves on 

 finding 



" tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 



Sermons in stones, and good in everything." 



