62 THE OAK. 



gnarled trunk is eaten out by the frost of cen- 

 turies, whose knotted linibs are fringed with ferns, 

 and mottled with innumerable mosses and lichens ; 

 even if but a scanty fohage clings to branches 

 which have been shattered again and again by the 

 tempest^ or if, instead of a leafy summit, it rears 

 aloft a fantastic assemblage of hoary, sapless 

 antlers ; — and you will hear him exclaim, I go 

 no farther to-day : this is the tree for a picture 1" 

 And move he will not, until with his pencil he 

 has produced the same image which the poet has 

 conjured up with his pen. 



" A huge Oak, dry and dead. 

 Still clad with reliques of its glories old. 

 Lifting to Heaven its aged, hoary head ; 

 Whose foot on earth hath got but feeble hold, 

 And. half-disbowelled, stands above the ground ; 

 With wreathed roots, and naked arms, 

 And trunk all rotten and unsound.** 



Spenser. 



Gilpin (and few ^vill be bold enough to differ 

 from him in this respect) considers the Oak as the 

 most picturesque of trees. He thus recommends 

 to the artist a careful study of the various tints 

 observable on its bark : — have often stood with 

 admiration before an old forest Oak, examining 

 the various tints which have enriched its furrowed 

 stem. The genuine bark of an Oak is of an ash- 

 colour, though it is difficult to distinguish any 

 part of it from the mosses that overspread it ; for 

 no Oak, I suppose, was ever without a greater or 

 less proportion of these picturesque appendages. 

 The lower parts, about the roots, are often pos- 

 sessed bv that green veh'et moss which in a still 

 ofreater degree commonly occupies the bole of the 

 Beech ; though the beauty and brilhancy of it 



