CHAPTER IL

IT is in the arrangement and management of trees, that the great art of improvement consists: earth is too cumbrous and lumpish for man to contend much with, and when worked upon, its effects are flat and dead like its nature. But trees, detaching themselves at once from the surface, and rising boldly into the air, have a more lively and immediate effect on the eye: they alone, form a canopy over us, and a varied frame to all other objects; which they admit, exclude, and group with, almost at the will of the improver. Ip

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beauty, they not only far excel every thing of inanimate nature, but their beauty is complete and perfect in itself; while that of almost every other object requires their assistance. Without them, the most varied inequality of ground is uninteresting: rocks, though their variety is of a more striking kind, and often united with grandeur, still want their accompaniment: and although in the higher parts of mountains trees are neither expected nor required, yet if there be none in any part of the view, a scene of mere barrenness and desolation, however grand, soon fatigues the eye. Water in all its characters of brooks, rivers, lakes, and water-falls, appears cold and naked without them: the sea aloné forms an exception, its sublimity absorbing all idea of lesser ornaments; for no one can view the foam, the gulphs, the impetuous motion of that world of waters, without a deep impression of its destructive and irresistible power. But sublimity is not its only character; for after that first awful sensation is weakened by use, the infinite variety in

the forms of the waves, in their light and shadow, in the dashing of their spray, and above all, the perpetual change of motion, continue to amuse the eye in detail, as much as the grandeur of the whole possessed the mind. It is in this that it differs, not only from motionless objects, but even from rivers and cataracts, however diversified in their parts: in them, the spectator sees no change from what he saw at first; the same breaks in the current, the same falls continue; but the intricacies and varieties of waves breaking against rocks, are as endless as their motion,

There are situations where trees succeed near the sea, but it is only where it is landlocked; and in such cases, though their combination, as at Mount Edgcumbe, is no less beautiful than uncommon, the sea itself loses its grand imposing character, and puts on something of the appearance lake. Then it is that trees are necessary; for a lake bounded by naked ground, or by naked rocks, forms a dull or a rude

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landscape: but let one change only be made, let the sea break against those rocks, and trees will no longer be thought of.

As, in addition to its sublime character, the intricacy and variety of its waves render the sea independent of trees, so those are the two qualities in trees, which tender them of such importance in all inland situ→ ations, especially in those of a tame unva❤ ried character: and so great is their power of correcting monotony, that, by their means, even a dead flat may become highly interesting.

The infinite variety of their forms, tints, and light and shade, must strike every body; the quality of intricacy they possess, in as high a degree, and in a more exclusive and peculiar manner, Take a single tree only, and consider it in this point of view. It is composed of millions of boughs, sprays, and leaves, intermixed with, and crossing each other in as many directions; while through the various openings, the eye still discovers new and infinite combina

tions of them yet in this labyrinth of intricacy, there is no unpleasant confusion; the general effect is as simple, as the detail is complicate. Ground, rocks, and buildings, where the parts are much broken, become fantastic and trifling; besides, they have not that loose pliant texture so well adapted to partial concealment: a tree, therefore, is perhaps the only object where a grand whole, or at least what is most conspicuous in it, is chiefly composed of innumerable minute and distinct parts.

To shew how much those who ought to be the best judges, consider the qualities I have mentioned, no tree, however large and vigorous, however luxuriant the foliage, will highly interest the painter, if it present one uniform unbroken mass of leaves; while others, not only inferior in size, and in thickness of foliage, but of forms which might induce some improvers to cut them down, will attract and fix their attention. The reasons of this preference are obvious; but as on these reasons, according to the ideas I have formed, the