growth, and the summit of the wood is contained under one straight line. This, except in very remote distance, is formal, heavy, and disgusting. The shape of distant woods is then only picturesque when it is broken by a varied line. This variation is, in some degree, occasioned by the different size of trees; but as the size of trees, where the distance is great, has little effect, it is chiefly and most essentially occasioned by the inequalities of the ground.

A regular line at the base of a long range of woody scenery, is almost as disgusting as at the summit of it. The woods must in some parts approach nearer the eye; and in other parts retire, forming the appearance of bays and promontories. At least this is the most beautiful shape in which they appear, as they sometimes do, when the distance, or the inequalities of the ground, do not prevent the eye from seeing the base of the wood. As the base is connected with the ground, it is commonly much more obscured than the summit, which ranges along the sky.

All square, round, picked, or other formal shapes in distant woods, are disgusting.

We remember, that, when we were travelling in Ross-shire, we noticed the broad side of a hill, where a landscape gardener, of no ordinary taste, had actually planted some favourite name, we believe that of the estate, in letters, composed of plantations a quarter of a mile long. Field Marshal John, second Earl of Stair, who was so remarkable, both as a soldier and a statesman, having inherited the estate of New Liston, near Edinburgh, resided there for twenty years after his return, in 1720, from his embassy to Paris, and having employed his active mind in laying out his pleasure grounds, he planted them with trees, arranged according to the plan of one of Marlborough's battles, in which he had borne a prominent part! Strange as it may seem, however, the great extent of the whole has so far prevented the bad effect of such a procedure, that, now that the timber has become large, New Liston has all the character of a fine old place.

A

There should not only be breaks, but contrast also between the several breaks of a distant forest scene. line regularly varied disgusts as much as an unvaried

one.

Among the permanent beauties of distant woods, may be reckoned also the various kinds of trees of which they are often composed. Unless the distance be great, this mixture has its effect in the variety it produces both in form and colour. Large bodies of fir also, and other species of pines, have often a rich appearance in a distance among deciduous trees; but they must be Scotch firs, pinasters, cluster pines, or other clump headed trees. The spiry headed race, the spruce fir, the silver fir, and the Weymouth pine, have here too, as well as in the clump, a bad effect. Single, they are sometimes beautiful, or two or three of them, here and there, by way of contrast, in large plantations, may be picturesque; but I think they are never so in large bodies. In general, however, the picturesque eye is little curious with regard to the kind of trees which compose a distant scene: for there are few kinds which do not harmonize together. It matters more in this bold style of landscape, that the masses of each different kind should be large. The opposition is then strongly marked, and the contrast striking and beautiful. If dif ferent trees are grouped in small bodies, the effect is totally lost in distance.

The last species of permanent beauty which we take notice of in distant forest scenery, arises from works of

art.

We mean not the embellishments of art, but such rude works as may almost be styled the works of Nature -the productions of convenience, rather than of taste. We certainly fetch the most picturesque objects from the grand storehouse of Nature; though we condescend to admit artificial objects also; but when they are admitted in this class, they must always be of the rough, rather than of the polished kind.

Such objects we often meet with in the wild scenes of the forest, spires, towers, lodges, bridges, cattle sheds, cottages, winding pales, and other things of the same kind, which have often as beautiful an effect when seen at a distance, as we have just observed they have when sparingly met with in the internal parts of a forest; only, the nearer the object is, we expect its form must be the more picturesque. Distance, no doubt, hides

many defects, and many an object may appear well in a remove, which, brought nearer, would disgust the eye.

SECTION IX.

HAVING thus considered what may properly be called the permanent beauties of distant forest scenery, we proceed to its incidental beauties. These arise principally from two causes, the Weather and the Seasons. As both are changeable, they both produce various appearances: the former affects chiefly the sky, the latter the earth.

The Weather is a fruitful source of incidental beauty; and there are few states of it which do not impress some peculiar and picturesque character on landscape, to which it gives the leading tint. A country is chiefly affected by the weather when it is hazy and misty-or when the sky is invested with some cold tint or when the sun rises or when it shines full at noon or when it sets or lastly, when the day is stormy. Each of these different states of the weather admits much variation; but as it would be endless to trace these variations into detail, I shall take notice only of the general effects of each, and of these merely as they affect the forest. In other works of this kind, I have touched upon these sources of incidental beauty as they affect lakes and mountains.*

The calm, overcast, soft day, such as these climates often produce in the beginning of autumn, hazy, mild, and undisturbed, affords a beautiful medium, spreading over the woods a sweet gray tint, which is especially favourable to their distant appearances. The internal parts of the forest receive little advantages from this hazy medium; but the various tuftings of distant woods are wonderfully sweetened by it; and many a form, and many a hue, which in the full glare of sunshine would be harsh and discordant, are softened and melted together

* See Observations on the Lakes of Cumberland and Highlands of Scotland.

in harmony. We often see the effects of this mode of atmosphere in various species of landscape; but it has nowhere a better effect than on the woods of the forest. Nothing appears through mist more beautiful than trees a little removed from the eye, when they are opposed to trees at hand; for as the foliage of a tree consists of a great number of parts, the contrast is very pleasing between the varied surface of the tree at hand, and the dead unvaried appearance of the removed one.

The light mist is only a greater degree of haziness. Its object is a nearer distance, as a remote one is totally obscured by it. In this situation of the atmosphere, not only all the strong tints of Nature are obscured, but all the smaller variations of form are lost. We look only for a general mass of softened harmony and sober colouring unmarked by any strength of effect. The vivid hues of autumn particularly appear to great advanage through this medium. Sometimes these mists are partial; and if they happen to coincide with the composition of the landscape, this partiality is attended with peculiar beauty. I have remarked in other works of this kind,* that when some huge promontory emerges from a spreading mist, which hangs over one part of it, it not only receives the advantage of contrast, but it also becomes an object of double grandeur. We often see the woods of the forest also with peculiar advantage, emerging through a mist in the same style of greatness. I have known likewise a nearer distance, strongly illumined, produce a good effect through a light drizzling shower.

Nearly allied to mists is another incidental appearance, -that of smoke, which is often attended with peculiar beauty in woody scenes. When we see it spreading in the forest glade, and forming a soft bluish background to the trees which intercept it, it shews their foliage and ramification to great advantage.

No artist knows better how to avail himself of this incident than the Rev. John Thomson, of Duddingston, whose fine

* See Observations on Scotland, vol. ii. p. 174.

imagination and magical execution enable him to throw over his picture those powerful tones of poetical feeling without which landscape painting is a bare mechanical art, incapable of exciting any of those delicate or sublime associations in which the true pleasure derived from its contemplation consists.

Sometimes also a good effect arises, when the sky, under the influence of a bleak north wind, cold and overcast, is hung with blue or purple clouds lowering over the horizon. If under that part of the atmosphere the distant forest happens to range, it is overspread with a deep blue or a purple tint from the reflection of the clouds, and makes a very picturesque appearance. And yet I should be cautious in advising the painter to introduce it with that full strength in which he may sometimes perhaps observe it. The appearance of blue and purple trees, unless in very remote distance, offends, and though the artist may have authority from Nature for his practice, yet the spectator who is not versed in such effects may be displeased. Painting, like poetry, is intended to excite pleasure; and though the painter, with this view, should avoid such images as are trite and vulgar, yet he should seize those only which are easy and intelligible. Neither poetry nor painting is a proper vehicle for the depths of learning. The painter, therefore, will do well to avoid every uncommon appearance in Nature.

Within this caution, however, he will spread the prevailing tint of the day over his landscape-over his whole landscape. Nature tinges all her pictures in this harmonious manner. It is the grayish tint, or it is the blue; or it is the purple, or it is one of the vivid tints of illumination, red, or yellow-whatever it be, it blends with all the lights and shadows of the piece. This great principle of harmony which arises from the reflection of colour, (in some degree, even when the air is diaphanous,) must be observed by every painter who wishes to procure an effect. His picture must be painted from one pallet, and one key, as in music, must prevail through his whole composition. As the air, however, is the vehicle of all these tints, it is evident, that in distances