158 
TREES. 
The “ shooter yew,” a simple word, that carries our imaginations 
back to the battles of Crecy, and Pditiers, where the prowess of our 
archer ancestors, was celebrated by the historian Froissart, whose 
chronicles are as entertaining as a romance. 
How wonderful is a judicious adaptation of terms,—how charming 
is poetry,—how extraordinary the skill of the poet, to produce a pic¬ 
ture to the “mind’s eye,”—in a single phrase, which would tax, for 
many weeks the labour and invention of the ablest painter to em¬ 
body ! 
The “drunken vine!”—“'Bacchus and his pards,”—and “goat 
foot shapes,” and ivy crowns, and heaped up bunches of rich purple 
grapes,— and all the merry rout, that startled Ariadne in her lonely 
isle,—and Old Silenus, “ tipsily quaffing,”-all these, and many, 
many more beautiful visions, of the ancient mythology, crowded into 
our imaginations, touched into life by the magic of a poet’s wand. 
Iam an enthusiastic admirer of trees; and cordially agree with 
the picturesque Gilpin, who thus commences his charming work on 
“Forest Scenery.” “It is no exaggerated praise, to call a tree the 
grandest and most beautiful of all the productions of the earth.” 
Gilpin was a painter, and his work was written with reference 
chiefly to the situations of his favourites, in a pictorial view. Thus 
we have poets, painters, authors, drawing our attention to a subject 
replete with interest; and particularly delightful to young and sensi¬ 
tive minds. Can I do wrong. Sir, to point out to such, the several 
springs at which they may slake their thirst for knowledge, conveyed 
through the medium of charming language P 
Chaucer—alas !—is to many, a sealed book :—the causes are, the 
quaintness of his style, together with occasional freedom of handling 
his subject, which, although perused and admired by the good, the 
fair, and the noble of bis own day, will not suit the refinement of 
modern times. These objections have been lately entirely obviated 
however, by a very elegant little publication of a part of his works, 
called “Tales from Chaucer,” in prose, which all should read who 
wish to commence an acquaintance with him, of whom Spencer savs, 
he was 
“ A well of English, undefiled — 
And a more recent author,-— Akenside, writes 
“ Him who in times 
“Dark and untaught, began with charming verse 
“ To tame the rudeness of his native laud.” 
I would not trespass, Sir, either on your space or the attention of 
your juvenile readers ; and therefore close my paper with a sincere 
