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the subject wherever pictorial exposition may aid the verbal. It will be recollected that no other Encyclopædia published in this country has the advantage of illustrations.

The character of Messrs. William and Robert Chambers of itself gives ample assurance that the work is prepared and executed in a superior manner; but when we superadd to this the fact that they have spared no labor or expense, but have devoted to it all the resources of their experience, enterprise, and skill, in order to make the work, in all its departments, their crowning contribution to the cause of knowledge, we are the more ready to believe that it actually is all that it claims to be. The American edition by J. B. Lippincott & Co., of Philadelphia, is published in numbers simultaneously with the Edinburgh and London edition, and in an unexceptionable style of typography. Its low price brings it within the reach of almost every reader. Indeed, when we consider the size of the volumes, the number of illustrations and maps, the mechanical execution, and the compensation to the writers, we are at a loss to conceive how it can be profitably furnished at so cheap a

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The Recreations of a Country Parson. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 12mo.

THE essays of which this volume is made up were originally contributed to "Fraser's Magazine." The "Recreations" they record are therefore those of an English, and not an American "Parson"; but there is nothing in them which a parson of any church or denomination would feel inclined to repudiate, on the score either of their fineness of mental perception or healthiness of moral sense. The author tells us, that, in writing these essays, he has not been rapt away into heroic times and distant scenes, but has written of daily work and worry amid daily work and worry and herein lies the charm of his discourses. He has one of those sensible, elastic, cheerful natures whose ideal qualities are not perverted by fretfulness and discontent. That most wicked of Byronisms, which consists in depreciating the

duties of common life in order to exalt the claims of a kind of spiritualized sensuality and poetic self-importance, he instinctively avoids. The thirteen shrewd, suggestive, and practical essays which compose the present volume are transcripts of his own experience and meditations, and teem with facts and observations such as might be expected from the clear insight of a man who has mingled with his fellow-men, and who is curiously critical of the non-romantic phenomena of their daily life. The essays on the Art of Putting Things, on Petty Malignity and Petty Trickery, on Tidiness, on Nervous Fears, on Hurry and Leisure, on Work and Play, on Dulness, and on Growing Old, are full of fresh and delicate perceptions of the ordinary facts of human experience. His best and brightest remarks surprise us with the unexpectedness of homely common sense, as flashed on a world of organized illusions. The entire absence of rhetoric in the author's mode of "putting things" adds to its effectiveness. He attempts to reveal the common, - one of the rarest of revelations; and shows what heroic qualities are needed to overcome the superficial circumstances of our life, and transmute them into occasions for that humble, obscure heroism which God alone apprehends and rewards. The freedom of the writer from all the stereotyped phraseology of sanctity in doing this work, and his innocent sympathy with everything cheerful, pleasurable, and lovable in Nature and human nature, only add to the power of his teachings. These "Recreations" of the "Parson" will, to the generality of readers, produce more beneficent results than could have been produced, had he given us his most carefully prepared sermons,-for they connect religion with life. Nobody can read the volume without feeling the moral and religious purpose which underlies its graceful and genial exhibition of human character and manners. The common objection to clergymen is, that they are ignorant of the world. No sagacious reader of the present book can doubt that this parson, at least, is an exception to the general rule; for he palpably knows more of the world. than most men who have made it a special study.

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A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.

VOL. VIII.-AUGUST, 1861.-NO. XLVI.

TREES IN ASSEMBLAGES.

THE subject of Trees cannot be exhausted by treating them as individuals or species, even with a full enumeration of their details. Some trees possess but little interest, except as they are grouped in assemblages of greater or less extent. A solitary Fir or Spruce, for example, when standing in an inclosure or by the roadside, is a stiff and disagreeable object; but a deep forest of Firs is not surpassed in grandeur by one of any other species. These trees must be assembled in extensive groups to affect us agreeably; while the Elm, the Oak, and other wide-spreading trees, are grand objects of sight, when standing alone, or in any other situation.

I will not detain the reader with a prolix account of the classification of trees in assemblages, but simply glance at a few points. The Romans used four different words to express these distinctions. When they spoke of a wood with reference to its timber, they used the word silva; saltus was a collection of wild-wood in the mountains; nemus, a smaller collection, partaking of cultivation, and answering to our ideas of a grove; lucus was a wood, of any description, which was set apart for religious purposes, or dedicated to some Deity. In the English language we can make these distinctions intelligible only by the use of adjectives. A for

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est is generally understood to be a wildwood of considerable extent, retaining all its natural features. A grove is a smaller assemblage of trees, not crowded together, but possessing very generally their full proportions, and divested of their undergrowth. Other inferior groups are designated as copse and thicket. The words park, clump, arboretum, and the like, are mere technical terms, that do not come into use in a general description of Nature.

Groves, fragments of forest, and inferior groups only are particularly interesting in landscape. An unbroken forest of wide extent makes but a dreary picture and an unattractive journey, on account of its gloomy uniformity. Hence the primitive state of the earth, before it was modified by human hands, must have been sadly wanting in those romantic features that render a scene the most attractive. Nature must be combined with Art, however simple and rude, and associated with human life, to become deeply affecting to the imagination. But it is not necessary that the artificial objects of a landscape should be of a grand historical description, to produce these agreeable effects: humble objects, indeed, are the most consonant with Nature's sublime aspects, because they manifest no seem

ing endeavor to rival them. In the deep solitary woods, the sight of a woodman's hut in a clearing, of a farmer's cottage, or of a mere sheepfold, immediately awakens a tender interest, and enlivens the scene with a tinge of romance.

The earth must have been originally covered with forest, like the American continent in the time of Columbus. This has in all cases disappeared, as population has increased; and groves, fragments of wild-wood, small groups, and single trees have taken its place. Great Britain, once renowned for its extensive woods, now exhibits only smaller assemblages, chiefly of an artificial character, which are more interesting to the landscape-gardener than to the lover of Nature's primitive charms. Parks, belts, arboretums, and clipped hedge-rows, how ever useful as contributing to pleasure, convenience, or science, are not the most interesting features of wood-scenery. But the customs of the English nobility, while they have artificialized all the fairest scenes in the country, and ruined them for the eyes of the poet or the painter, have been the means of preserving some valuable forests, which under other circumstances would have been utterly destroyed. A deer-forest belonging to the Duke of Athol comprises four hundred thousand acres; the forest of Farquharson contains one hundred and thirty thousand acres; and several others of smaller extent are still preserved as deer-parks. Thus do the luxuries of the rich tend, in some instances, to preserve those natural objects of which they are in general the principal destroyers.

Immense forests still overspread a great part of Northern Russia, through which it has been asserted that a squirrel might traverse hundreds of miles, without touching the ground, by leaping from tree to tree. Since the general adoption of railroad travelling, however, great ravages have been made in these forests, and not many years will be required to reduce them to fragments. In the South of Europe a great part of the territory is barren of woods, and the climate has suffered

from this cause, which has diminished the bulk of the streams and increased the severity of droughts. But Nature has established a partial remedy for the evil arising from the imprudent destruction of forests, in lofty and precipitous mountains, that serve not only to perpetuate moisture for the supply of rain to the neighboring countries, but contribute also to preserve the timber in their inaccessible ravines. Were it not for this safeguard of mountains, the South of Europe would ere this have become a desert, from the destruction of its forests, like Sahara, whose barrenness was anciently produced by the same cause.

Most of the territory of North America is still comparatively a wilderness; but in the United States the forests have been so extensively invaded, that they seldom exhibit any distinct outlines, and few of them possess the character of unique assemblages. They are but scattered fragments of the original forest, through which the settlers have made their irregular progress from east to west, diversifying it with roads, farms, and villages. The recent clearings are palisaded by tall trees, exhibiting a naked outline of skeleton timber, without any attractions. It is in the old States only that we see anything like a picturesque grouping of woods; and here, the absence of art and design, in the formation and relative disposition of these groups, gives them a peculiar interest to the lover of natural scenery. There is a charm, therefore, in New-England landscape, existing nowhere else in equal degree; but this is rapidly giving place to those artificial improvements that are destined to ruin the face of the country, which owes its present attractions to the spontaneous efforts of Nature, modified only by the unartistic operations of a simple agriculture.

Travelling in a forest, though delightful as an occasional recreation, is, when continued many hours in succession, unless one be engaged in scientific researches, very monotonous and weari

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are not so various as those of a tract in which all the different conditions of wildness and culture are intermingled. A view of an unbroken wilderness from an elevation is equally monotonous. Wood must be blended with other forms of landscape, with pasture and tillage, with roads, houses, and farms, to convey to the mind the most agreeable sensations. The monotony of unbroken forest-scenery is partially relieved in the autumn by the mixed variety of tints belonging to the different trees; but this does not wholly subdue the prevailing expression of dreariness and gloom.

Nothing can surpass the splendor of this autumnal pageantry, as beheld in the Green Mountains of Vermont and Western Massachusetts, in the early part of October. This region abounds in Sugar-Maples, which are very beautifully tinted, and in a sufficient variety of other trees to delight the eye with every specious hue. A remarkable appearance may always be observed in Maples. Some trees of this kind are entirely green, with the exception perhaps of a single bough, which is of a bright crimson or scarlet. Sometimes the lower half of the foliage will be green, while the upper part is entirely crimsoned, resembling a spire of flame rising out of a mass of verdure. In other cases this order is reversed, and the tree presents the appearance of a green spire rising out of flame. We see no end to the variety of these apparently capricious phenomena, which some have explained by supposing the colored branches to be affected with partial disease that hastens their maturity: but this can hardly be admitted as the true explanation, as such appearances exist when no other symptoms of malady can be discovered.

So much has been said and written of late in regard to the tints of autumn leaves, that the writer of this cannot be expected to advance anything new concerning them. Let me remark, however, that these beautiful tintings are not due to the action of frost, which is, on the contrary, highly prejudicial to them, as we may observe on several different occasions. If, for ex

ample, a frost should occur in September of sufficient intensity to cut down the tender annuals of our gardens,— after this, when the tints begin to appear, the outer portion of the foliage that was touched by the frost will exhibit a sullied and rusty hue. The effects of these early frosts are seldom apparent while the leaves are green, except on close inspection; for a very intense frost is required to sear and roll up the leaves. Early autumnal frosts seldom do more than to injure their capacity to receive a fine tint when they become mature.

The next occasion that renders the injurious effects of frost apparent is later in the season, after the tints are very generally developed. Every severe frost that happens at this period impairs their lustre, as we may perceive on any day succeeding a frosty night, when the woods, which were previously in their gayest splendor, will be faded to a duller and more uniform shade,- as if the whole mass had been dipped into a brownish dye, leaving the peculiar tints of each species dimly conspicuous through this shading. The most brilliant and unsullied hues are displayed in a cool, but not frosty autumn, succeeding a moderate summer. Very warm weather in autumn hastens the coloring process, and renders the hues proportionally transient. I have known Maple woods, early in October, to be completely embrowned and stripped of their leaves by two days of summer heat. Cool days and nights, unattended with frost, are the favorable conditions for producing and preserving the beauty of autumnal wood-scenery.

The effects of heat and frost are not so apparent in Oak woods, which have a more coriaceous and persistent foliage than other deciduous trees: but Oaks do not attain the perfection of their beauty, until the Ash, the Maple, and the Tupelo- the glory of the first period of autumn-have shed a great portion of their leaves. The last-named trees are in their splendor during a period of about three weeks after the middle of September, varying with the character of the season.

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