LAI.IDER•S GILPIN.
MOST people have heard of the name of GILPIN; many, perhaps, know little or nothing of his work on Forest Seenery ; it may be necessary to tell them that its subject is Tree,. Possessing a na- tural taste for rural objects, the friendship of W tr.LIAMMITroRD, the historian, happened to induct hitn to a Lying in the precincts of the New Forest. Here he spent many years of his lite in ob- serving the forms, the characteristics, and, so to speak, the habits of trees ; and in analyzing what may be called the Oituresque beauties of each, considered both as a species and individually. His attention was then directed to their combination. He studied what a painter would call the best mode of grouping them, from the single clump which studs the village green or the park-like lawn, up even to the forest. The taste and information thus ac- quired, he poured into his celebrated work; which he divided into three books. The first, to use his own expression, considers "trees as single objects;" and is wound up with a sort of biography of celebrated trees. The second part considers his subjects under "their various modes of combination," in pleasure-grounds parks, and glens; and as clumps, copses, groves, and woods. He next looks at the effects of the atmosphere and the seasons upon forests; offers sonic slight remarks on a few of the more striking animals which inhabit them; and:concludes with a history of the forests of Britain. The third book contains an historical and descriptive account of the New Forest, with remarks upon the animals which are found in it.
From this description, it will be seen that the plan is judicious and comprehensive: but no dry account can convey any idea of the work. The natural conception and long gestation have given it a completeness and harmony of structure which the highest genius could not have accomplished by other means, The execu- tion is as masterly as iatight be expected from Wet° and, knowledge working con amore. The style is admit ably adapted to the sub- ject,—elegantly pastoral, with somewhat more of terseness and vigour than belong to the oaten recd. To country gentlemee of taste—to all improvers, of cultivated minds—GILPts is indispen- sable. To every one his book is delightful lazy reading. For country reading, which always partakes rather of the Minn:, it is amongst the most charming of volumes. But the necessary ab- sence of story, or of direct human interest, renders a continuous perusal a little tiresome ; and the busy, when they put him down, are not always in a hurry to take him up again.
Such is the author Sir TinamAs Diex LAUDER has undertaken to edite ; and he has executed his task in a congenial spirit. GIL- PIN was of course (we speak chronologically) ignorantof ALISON'S principles of Taste, and he sometimes w as puzzled to account for the reasons on which certain picturesque but useless objects were ad- mired. Sir Tnoti.ts commences his labours with an abridgment of ALISON'S theory, that the reader may know why he is pleased. He then presents the text of the author in a large type, interspers- ing his own observations in a smaller one, so that those who prefer consecutive reading may pass him over. The matter of the notes is very various. Sometimes they confirm, or rorrect, or amplify the original ; sometimes they illustrate the particular views, or they comprise catalogues of the different species of trees which GILPIN did not stop to enumerate, or they furnish the reasons for the judg- ment he pronounced; sometimes they are ancedotical, or gossipy ; they are sometimes mere interruptions ; they are frequently usefill and interesting, and occasionally beautiful.
We had marked for extract a number of passages, taken almost at random : but our spaceus, we shall give only two, con- taining the editor's experienced additions to Mr. GIL el si's account of the Alder and the Hawthorn. Of the latter, Sir THOMAS says— We think Mr. Gilpin is peculiarly hard upon the Hawthorn, the 31f$pilas (Cratavas)oxycautha. Even ill a picturesque point of view, which is the point of view in which he al vays looks at Nature, the hawthorn k not only an interesting object by itself, but produces a most interestiug ramilduation, or contrast, as things may be, Adieu grouped with other trees. We have sect) it hanging over rocks, with deep shadows under its foilage, or shooting from their sides, in the :mist fantastic forms, as if to gaze at its image in the deep pool- below. We have seen it contrasting its tender green and its delicate leaves with the brighter and deeper masses of the holly and the abler. We have seen it growing under the shelter, though not under the shade, of some stately oak, embodying the idea of beauty protected by strength. Our eyes have often caught the motion of the busy mill-wheel, over which its blossoms were clustering. We have seen it growing grandly on the green of the village school, the great object of general attraction to the young urchins, who played in groups about its roots, and perhaps the only thing remaining to be recognized, when the schoolboy returns as the man. We have seen its aged boughs ove.-shadowing one half of some peaceful woodland cottage, its foliage half concealing the window, whence the sounds of happy content and cheerful mirth came forth. We know that lively season, " When the milkmaid sineeth hlyt be, And the mower whets his scythe, And e‘ery shepherd tells his tale Under the hawthorn in the dale."
And with these, aml a thousand such association') as these, we cannot but feel emotions of no ordinary nature, when we behold this beautiful tree. We have seen many fine hawthorns; but none inure venerable than an enormous old tree, growing near the village of Ouddingstone, in the county of Edinburgh. We measured this tree in the year MA, and found it, at three feet above the root, nine feet in girth ; and a little way above the toots, twelve feet round. This surpasses a hawthorn mentioned by Weyer, as being near Ilethel Church, which, at four feet, was nine feet one and a half inch. One of its arms extended above seven yards. The wood of the hawthorn is valuable for the carver and the cabinetmaker ; but if allowed to remain in the log, it heats, and becomes brittle. It is remarkably durable and hard. We should have con ceived it to he of much too hard a nature to root front the truncheon, like the poplar or willow tribes, nor can such an occurrence be common but we had re- cently an opportunity of seeing a thorn tree, at Fountainhall, in fladdingtonshire, which the forester, a man of unquestionable veracity, assured us he had, with his own hand, driven down into the earth, wiult the point of it sharpened, as a stake in a dead hedge, which, to his astonishment, rooted spontaneously, budded, and put forth branches, and became the thriving tree we beheld. The whim- sical stake appearance of the stem bore testimony to the fact as narrated.
The Alder also is a great favourite with Sir 'THOMAS ; and, we think, upon reasonable grounds.
We fully agree with Mr. Gilpin in his commendation of the Aldet,—ilinus glatinasa, of the class and order Minvecia tetraadria of Linn:ens, and of the Amentaceir of Jussieu. It is always associated in our 'Made with river scenery, both of that tranquil description mutest frequently to be met with in the vales of England, and with that of a wilder and more stirring cast, which is to be found amidst the deep glens and ravines of Scotland. III very many instances, we have seen it put on so much of the hold resolute character of the oak, that it might have been mistaken for that tree, but for the intense depth of its green hue. The Mole may doubtless furnish the traveller with very beautiful
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speci- mens of the alder, as t may also furnish a sample of that species of quiet English scenery we have alluded to; but we venture to assert, that nowhere will the tree he found in greater perfection, than on the wild banks of the river Findhorn and its tributary streams., where scenery of the most r ,,,,, antic description every- where prevails. The remark as to the wants and purposes of inan tending to prevent the growth of trees to their full maturity, is too well exemplified in the case of the alder ; yet is it sometimes allowed to come to perfection. Mr. Bee- vor mentions an abler in his garden, which, at four feet from the ground, mea- sured sixteen feet two and three quarter inches. It is extremely valuable, even at a small size, for cutting up into herring-barrel staves, and tints whole banks in Scotland are denuded every year of this species of timber. The old trees, which are full of knots, cut up Into planks' have all the beauty of the curled maple, with the advantage of presenting a deep rich reddish tint; and in this state they make most beautiful tables. We have seen some of these, and we have the good fortune to possess one, made from some enormous trees that grew at Damck, the property of Sir John Nasmyth, in Peeblesshire ; and no foreign wood we have ever seen can match them for beauty. It must be remembered, however, that the alder timber is very liable to be perforated by the small bee- tle; it should therefore, if possible, be prepared by !winding the logs in a large hole dug in a peat moss, and impregnating the water of the hole with a quantity of lime. If this is done for a few months, and if the furniture is afterwards well varnished over with what is called French polish, it will stand unharmed
forgeaeratieus.
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