among them, that there are few more beautiful objects in Nature than the ramification of a tree. For myself, I am in doubt whether an old, rough, interwoven oak, merely as a single object, has not as much beauty in winter as in summer. In summer it has unquestionably more effect; but in point of simple beauty and amusement, I think I should almost prefer it in winter.

If a man were disposed to moralize, the ramification of a thriving tree affords a good theme. Nothing gives a happier idea of busy life. Industry and activity pervade every part. Wherever an opening, how minute soever, appears, there some little knot of busy adventurers push in, and form a settlement, so that the whole is every where full and complete. There too, as is common in all communities, are many little elbowings, justlings, thwartings, and oppositions, in which some gain and others lose.*

* As a continuation of this moralizing strain, the following short allegory ventures to appear in a note:

Ut sylvæ foliis pronos mutantur in annos;

Prima cadunt; ita.

Debemur morti nos, nostraque.

As I sat carelessly at my window, and threw my eyes upon a large acacia, which grew before me, I conceived it might aptly represent a country divided into provinces, towns, and families. The larger branches might hold out the first; the smaller branches connected with them, the second; and those combinations of collateral leaves, which specify the acacia, might represent families, composed of individuals. It was now late in the year, and the autumnal tint had taken possession of great part of the tree.

As I sat looking at it, many of the yellow leaves (which, having been produced earlier, decayed sooner) were continually dropping into the lap of their great mother. Here was an emblem of natural decay, the most obvious appearance of mortality.

As I continued looking, a gentle breeze rustled among the leaves. Many fell which in a natural course might have enjoyed life longer. Here malady was added to decay.

The blast increased, and every branch that presented itself bowed before it. A shower of leaves covered the ground. The cup of vengeance, said I, is poured out upon the people. Pestilence shakes the land. Nature sickens in the gale. They fall by multitudes. Whole families are cut off together.

The

Among the branches was one entirely withered; the leaves were shrivelled, yet clinging to it. Here was an emblem of famine. nutriment of life was stopped. Existence was just supported; but every form was emaciated and shrunk.

In the neighbourhood stretched a branch, not only shrivelled and

In examining the spray of trees, I shall confine myself to the oak, the ash, the elm, and the beech. It would be endless to run through the whole forest. Nor is it necessary. The examination of these few principal trees will shew how consequential a part the spray is, in fixing the character of the tree. There is as much difference in the spray as there is in the foliage, or in any other particular. At the same time, if a painter be accurate, in a certain degree, in his delineation of some of the more capital trees, in others his accuracy is of little consequence-nay, an endeavour at precision would be stiff and pedantic.

In the spray of the four species of trees just mentioned, and I doubt not in that of all other trees, Nature seems to observe one simple principle; which is, that the mode of growth in the spray corresponds exactly with that of the larger branches, of which indeed the spray is the origin. Thus, the oak divides his boughs from the stem more horizontally than most other deciduous trees: the spray makes exactly, in miniature, the same appearance; it breaks out in right angles, or in angles that are nearly so, forming its shoots commonly in short lines, the second year's shoot usually taking some direction contrary to

withered, but having been more exposed to winds, was stripped almost entirely of its leaves. Here and there hung a solitary leaf, just enough to shew that the whole had lately been alive. Ah! said I, here is an emblem of depopulation. Some violent cause hath laid waste the land. Towns and villages, as well as families, are desolated. Scarce ten are left to bemoan a thousand.

How does every thing around us bring its lesson to our minds! Nature is the great book of God; in every page is instruction to those who read. Mortality must claim its due. Death in various shapes hovers round us. Thus far went the heathen moralist. He had learned no other knowledge from these perishing forms of Nature, but that men, like trees, are subject to death:

Debemur morti nos, nostraque.

Ita

Better instructed, learn thou a nobler lesson. Learn that that God, who with the blast of winter shrivels the tree, and with the breezes of spring restores it, offers it to thee as an emblem of thy hopes. The same God presides over the natural and moral world. His works are uniform. The truths which Nature teaches, as far as they go, are the truths of revelation also. It is written in both these books, that that Power which revives the tree, will revive thee also, like it, with increasing perfection.

that of the first. Thus the rudiments are laid of that abrupt mode of ramification, for which the oak is so remarkable. When two shoots spring from the same knot, they are commonly of unequal length; and one with large strides generally takes the lead. Very often also three shoots, and sometimes four, spring from the same knot. Hence the spray of this tree becomes thick, close, and interwoven; so that, at a little distance, it has a full, rich appearance, and more of the picturesque roughness, than we observe in the spray of any other tree. The spray of the oak generally springs from the upper, or the lateral parts of the bough; and it is this which gives its branches that horizontal appearance which they generally assume.

The spray of the ash is very different. As the boughs of the ash are less complex, so is its spray. Instead of the thick intermingled bushiness which the spray of the oak exhibits, that of the ash is much more simple, running in a kind of irregular parallels. The main stem holds its course, forming at the same time a beautiful sweep; but the spray does not divide, like that of the oak, from the extremity of the last year's shoot, but springs from the sides of it. Two shoots spring out opposite to each other, and each pair in a contrary direction. Rarely, however, both the shoots of either side come to maturity; one of them is commonly lost, as the tree increases, or at least makes no appearance in comparison with the other, which takes the lead. So that, notwithstanding this natural regularity of growth, so injurious to the beauty of the spruce fir, and some other trees, the ash never contracts the least disgusting formality from it. It may even receive great picturesque beauty, for sometimes the whole branch is lost as far as one of the lateral shoots, and this occasions a kind of rectangular junction, which forms a beautiful contrast with the other spray, and gives an elegant mode of hanging to the tree.

This points out another difference between the spray of the oak and that of the ash. The spray of the oak, we observed, seldom shooots from the under sides of the larger branches; and it is this, together with the strength and firmness of the branches, which keeps them in a horizontal form. But the spray of the ash as often breaks