18 



THE OAK. 



Duke of Portland's park^ at Welbeck, there stood^ J 

 in I79O5 an Oak, called "the Duke's ^yalking- 

 stick/' wliich was an hundred and eleven feet 

 high, the trunk rising to the height of seventy 

 feet before it formed a head. Others nearly 

 equalling this have been noticed. 



A remarkable characteristic of the Oak is the 

 stoutness of its limbs. We know no tree, ex- 

 cept, perhaps, the Cedar of Lebanon, so remark- 

 able in this respect. The limbs of most trees 

 spring from the trunk : in the Oak they may be 

 rather said to divide from it ; for they generally 

 carry with them a great share of the substance of 

 the stem : you often scarcely know which is stem 

 and which is branch ; and, towards the top, the 

 stem is entirely lost in the branches. This gives 

 peculiar propriety to the epithet ' fortes,' in cha- 

 racterising the branches of the Oak ; and hence 

 its sinewy elbows are of such peculiar use in ship- 

 building. Whoever, therefore, does not mark the 

 fortes ramos of the Oak, might as well, in painting 

 a Hercules, omit his muscles. But I speak only 

 of the hardy veterans of the forest. In the effe- 

 minate nurslings of the grove we have not this 

 appearance. There the tree is all stem drawn up 

 into height. When we characterise a tree, vre con- 

 sider it, in its natural state, insulated, and without 

 any lateral pressure. In a forest, trees naturally 

 grow in that manner^ The seniors depress all the 

 juniors that attempt to rise near them ; but in a 

 planted grove all grow up together, and none can 

 exert any power over another. 



The next characteristic of the Oak is the 

 twisting of its branches. Examine the Ash, the 

 Elm, the Beech, or almost any other tree, and 



