genius, the latter is a mere mechanical knack. The one therefore is admired by the man of taste, the other, except for a moment, only by the ignorant and uninformed. This is just the case before us. The painter who chooses a winter subject, in general gives up composition and effect, to shew how naturally he can represent snow or hoar frost. It is almost impossible to produce a good effect with these appendages of winter: they must naturally create false and glaring lights, to which the painter generally makes his composition subservient. Among the sources of incidental beauty in a forest, may be mentioned (what perhaps may appear odd) the felling of timber. If you wish to fell trees with some particular view to improvement, the intention is often frustrated. It must be done very artfully, or, in general, your design will be apparent and disgusting to the eye. The master of the scene himself, who is always on the spot, and examines it frequently from every stand, if he be a man of taste, will be the best improver, and direct the felling axe with most judgment. At the same time, we frequently see trees cut down carelessly, for the purpose of utility, which have opened greater beauties than any they possessed themselves when standing, though the preconceived loss of them was greatly lamented. But this can only happen where trees abound. I shall conclude this enumeration of the incidental beauties belonging to forest scenery, with an appendage which we frequently see in it, that of a timber wain, an object of the most picturesque kind, especially when drawn by oxen. Here the tree, when dead, adorns again the landscape which it adorned when living. A gilded chariot is an object which art has industriously tricked out and decorated. It is of a piece, therefore, with all such artificial objects as are the most unlike Nature. Translation of Fresnoy, p. 114:— "Deception, which is so often recommended by writers on the theory of painting, instead of advancing the art, is in reality carrying it back to its infant state. The first essays of painting were certainly nothing but mere imitations of individual objects; and when this amounted to a deception, the artist had accomplished his purpose." OBSERVATIONS ON FOREST HISTORY. 343 Whereas the timber wain is at least a piece of simple art; and the rudeness of its form and materials is a property which it has in common with the works of Nature. Oxen, too, are more picturesque in themselves than horses. Much of the beauty, however, of this incident arises from its being adapted to the scene. A wain of timber is much more beautiful in a forest than it would be in the streets of a town. Thus I have enumerated the most common sources of permanent and incidental beauty in forest landscape. I have insisted only on the most common sources. An eye, inquisitive in the scenes of Nature, will investigate many others. Having detained the reader, perhaps, too long in this examination, I shall endeavour to relieve him by a few general observations on forest history. SECTION XI. PERHAPS, of all species of landscape, there is none which so universally captivates mankind as forest scenery; and our prepossession in favour of it appears in nothing more than in this, that the inhabitants of bleak countries, totally destitute of wood, are generally considered, from the natural feelings of mankind, as the objects of pity. Pliny has given us a view of this kind, which, he tells us, he took himself upon the spot. It represents a bleak sea coast in Zealand, before that country was embanked; the inhabitants of which he speaks of as the most wretched of human beings. It is true, there are other wants, besides that of scenery, which enter into the idea of their wretchedness; but I dare affirm, that if Pliny had found the same people, with all their wants about them, in a country richly furnished with wood, he would have spoken of them in different language. Pliny's picture is in itself so good, and is likewise so excellent a contrast to the scenes which we have just examined, that I think it worth inserting. I shall rather give the general sense of the passage, than an exact translation of it. "This coast," says he, "lies so much lower than the ocean, that the tides daily overflow it. The inhabitants build their huts on little eminences, which they either find or construct on the shores, and which serve to raise their dwellings just above the water mark. These dwellings, or rather cabins, when the tide rises, often seem like floating boats; and when it retires, the inhabitants appear like stranded mariners, and their cottages like wrecks. Their harvest is the ebbing of the sea, during which they are every where seen running about in quest of fish, and pursuing them in each little creek of the shore, as the tide deserts it. They have neither horse nor cow, nor domestic animal of any kind; and as to game, they have not the least appearance of a bush to shelter it. The whole employment of this wretched people is fishing. They make their nets of sea weed, and dry a kind of slimy mud for fuel. Rain water is their only drink, which they preserve in ditches, dug before their cabins."* Such is Pliny's picture of this bleak and desolate country. From the very feelings of Nature we shudder at it. Whereas the idea of the forest is pleasing to every one. The case is, though there may be as much real misery amidst beautiful scenery, yet beautiful scenery covers it. Wretchedness is often felt under splendid apparel; but it does not strike us in such attire as it does in rags. That man was originally a forest animal, appears from every page of his early history. Trace the first accounts of any people, and you will find them the inhabitants of woods, if woods were to be found in the countries in which they lived. Caves, thickets, and trunks of trees, were their retreats, and acorns their food, with such beasts as they took in hunting, which afforded them only a precarious supply. * See Pliny's Nat. Hist. book xvi. cap. i. Hæc nemora indigenæ Fauni, nymphæque tenebant, Queis neque mos, neque cultus erat; nec jungere tauros, Sed rami, atque asper victu venatus alebat.† If indeed they lived near a coast, like the Zealanders described by Pliny, they obtained a livelihood by fishing. But with the savages of the coast we have nothing to do: our attention is only engaged by the savage of the woods. While man continued thus an inmate of the forest, it is possible he might have sagacity to build himself a hut of boughs, which he might cover with clods; and yet it is more probable, that while he continued the mere child of Nature, he was contented with the simple shelter which Virgil above supposes his common mother furnished, the embowering thicket, or the hollow trunk, as summer or winter led him to prefer an or a closer cover. Strabo speaks of certain Asiatics, even so late in the history of mankind as the times of Pompey the Great, who harboured, like birds, in the tops of trees. And I think the savages about Botany Bay, are not represented by our late discoverers in a much more improved condition. open It is remarkable that we can produce instances of at least a temporary residence in the tops of trees, in the very country where Pliny lived, and that even at the present moment. The peasants who work in the Pontine marshes, and who find it impossible, or inconvenient, to quit these unwholesome regions during the night, are obliged to resort to various stratagems to get above the reach of that miasma which is so fatal to human life. One of their expedients is to build cabins of sticks and reeds in the topmost boughs of the trees, and as the pestilential vapour hovers over the surface, they find that by occupying these elevated places of repose, they are in a *Born and living in trunks of trees, as Ruæus well explains it; not produced from them. t These woods the fawns and nymphs once held, Here, too, a hardy race of men subsist : Unversed in all the arts of life, they know Nor how to yoke the ox, nor turn the glebe; Content with the bare produce of the woods, Lib. xii. p. 549. edit. Casaub. great measure free from its malign influence. We have seen some of these curious aërial edifices, which, at a little distance, may easily be mistaken for the nests of some large birds of prey. Man in this solitary state (for scarcity of food forbade any enlarged ideas of society) waged but unequal war with his brother savages the brutes. Most of them outstripped him in speed, many of them contended with him in strength, and some nearly equalled him in sgacity. The human savage, thus finding himself hard put to it, even to defend his own, might look round for assistance, The dog, whose friendly manners* might solicit his acquaintance, was probably one of the first associates in those countries where dogs were to be found. This union made a powerful party in the forest. The great object of it, however, was rather food than conquest. The dog and his master were both carnivorous animals ; and they soon began to gratify their appetites at the expense of their fellow brutes. The one conducting and the other executing the plan, few creatures could oppose them. But man from the beginning was an ambitious animal. Having filled his belly, he aspired after dominion. For this purpose it was necessary for him to procure a better ally than that he had chosen. He had yet but little connection with his fellow. To join now and then in a hunting party was all the intercourse he knew. It was little more than such a league as is found among wolves, jackalls, and other animals that hunt in packs. Ideas of society, however, by degrees took place. The dawnings * That there is something very harmonious between the human and canine nature, is the observation of all naturalists. Every other domestic animal is attached to his habitation: the dog alone to his master. Build a shed for horses or cows in any place, and let them be well supplied with food, and they are perfectly happy. They know their keeper indeed; but they are no way disturbed if his loss be supplied by another who feeds them as well. Let a family leave a house, and a new family occupy it, the cat complains of nothing, except the bustle of a remove. But the dog, carry him where you will, and feed him with the most grateful food, enjoys for a long time no happiness if he be deprived of his beloved master. He forms new attachments in time; but he never forgets an old friendship. The friendship of a dog Homer has thought of consequence to introduce into an epic poem. |