lection of tall naked poles, with a few ragged boughs near the top; above-one uniform rusty cope, seen through decayed and decaying sprays and branches; below -the soil parched and blasted with the baleful droppings; hardly a plant or a blade of grass, nothing that can give an idea of life, or vegetation. Even its gloom is without solemnity; it is only dull and dismal; and what light there is, like that of hell,

"Serves only to discover scenes of woe,
Regions of sorrow, doleful shades.”

In a grove where the trees have had room to spread (and in that case I am very far from excluding the Scotch fir or any of the pines) the gloom has a character of solemn grandeur; that grandeur arises from the broad and varied canopy over head, from the small number, and great size of the trunks by which the canopy is supported*, and

*This circumstance seems to have struck Virgil in the case of a single tree:

Media ipsa, ingentem sustinet umbram.

from the large undisturbed spaces between them; but a close wood of firs, is, perhaps, the only one from which the opposite qualities of cheerfulness and grandeur, of symmetry and variety, are equally excluded; and in which, though the sight is perplexed and harassed by the confusion of petty objects, there is not the smallest degree of intricacy.

Firs, planted and left in the same close array, are very commonly made use of as screens and boundaries; but as the lower part is of most consequence where concealment is the object, they are, for the reasons I mentioned before, the most improper trees for that purpose. I will, however, suppose them to be exactly in the condition the planter would wish; that the outer boughs, on which alone he can place any dependence, were preserved from animals; and that though planted along the brow of a hill, they had escaped from wind and snow, and the many accidents to which they are exposed in bleak situa

tions; they would then exactly answer to that admirable description of Mr. Mason:

"The Scottish fir

In murky file rears his inglorious head,
And blots the fair horizon."

Nothing can be more accurately, or more forcibly expressed, or raise a juster image in the mind. Every thick unbroken mass of black, especially when it can be compared with softer tints, is a blot; and has the same effect on the horizon in nature, as if a dab of ink were thrown upon that of a Claude, This, however, is viewing it in its most favourable state, when at least it answers the purpose of a screen, though a heavy one: but it happens full as often, that the outer boughs do not reach above half way down; and then, besides the long, black, even line which cuts the horizon at the top, there is at bottom a streak of glaring light that pierces every where through the meagre and naked poles, and shews distinctly the poverty and thinness of the boundary. Many a common

hedge with a few trees in it, that has been suffered to grow wild, is a much more varied and effectual screen; but there are hedges, where yews and hollies are mixed with trees and thorns, so thick from the ground upwards, so diversified in their outline, in the tints, and in the light and shade, that the eye, which dwells on them with pleasure, is perfectly deceived; and can neither see through them, nor discover (hardly even suspect) their want of depth.

This striking contrast between a mere hedge, and trees planted for the express purpose of concealment and beauty, affords a very useful hint not only for screens and boundaries, but for every sort of plantation, where variety and intricacy, not mere profit, are the objects. We may learn from it that concealment, without which there can be no intricacy, cannot well be produced without a mixture of the smaller growths, such as thorns and hollies; which being naturally bushy, fill up the lower parts where the larger trees are apt to be bare. We may also learn in what manner

such a mixture produces variety of outline; for in a hedge such as I have described, the lower growths do not prevent the higher from extending their heads, while at the same time by their different degrees of height, more or less approaching to that of the timber trees, they accompany and group with them, and prevent that formal disconnected appearance, which hedgerow trees left alone, after every thing has been completely cleared from them, almost always present.

If by such means a mere single line of hedge becomes an effectual and varied screen, of course a deeper plantation conducted on the same principles would be á much more varied boundary, and more impenetrable to the eye; and it seems to me, that if this method were followed in all ornamental plantations, it would, in a great measure, obviate the bad effects of their being left too close, either from foolish fondness, or neglect. Suppose, for instance, that instead of the usual method of making an evergreen plantation of firs