line and dibble; she takes no note of formal arrangements, or of the "line of beauty," or of direct adaptation of means to ends. She shakes all things together, as in a dice-box, and as they fall out there they remain, growing crooked or straight, mean or magnificent, beautiful or ugly, but adapted by the infinite variety of their forms and dispositions to the wants and habits of all creatures.

The beauty of trees is something that exists chiefly in our imagination. We admire them for their evident adaptation to purposes of shade and shelter. Some of them we regard as symbols or images of a fine poetic sentiment. Such are the slender willows and poplars, that remind us of grace and refinement, becoming the emblems of some agreeable moral affection, or the embodiment of some striking metaphor. Thus Coleridge personifies the white birch as the "Lady of the Woods," and the oak by other poets is called the monarch, and the ash the Venus of the forest. The weeping willow, beautiful on account of its graceful spray, becomes still more so when regarded as the emblem of sorrow. The oak, in like manner, is interesting as the symbol of strength and fortitude. A young fir-tree always reminds us of primness; hence the name spruce, which is applied to many of the species, is a word used to express formality. The cedar of Lebanon would be viewed by all with a certain romantic interest, on account of the frequent mention of it in

Holy Writ, as well as for its nobleness of dimensions and stature.

It is with certain interesting scenes in the romance of travel that we associate the palms of the tropics. They have acquired singular attractions by appearing frequently in scenes that represent the life and manners of the simple inhabitants of the equatorial regions. We see them in pictures bending their fan-like heads majestically over the humble hut of the Indian, supplying him at once with milk, bread, and fruit, and affording him the luxury of their shade. They emblemize the beneficence of nature, which, by means of their products, supplies the wants of man before he has learned the arts of civilized life.

Writers in general apply the term "picturesque" to trees which are devoid of symmetry and very irregular in their outlines, either crooked from age or from some natural eccentricity of growth. Thus the tupelo is so called, to distinguish it from roundheaded and symmetrical or beautiful trees. This distinction is not very precise; but it is sanctioned by general use, and answers very well for common purposes of vague description. I shall use the words in a similar manner, not adhering to the distinction as philosophical. Indeed, it is impossible to find words that will clearly express a complex idea. Words are very much like tunes played on a jew's-harp; the notes intended to be given by the

performer are accompanied by the louder ring of the keynote of the instrument, making it difficult to detect the notes of the tune, except in the hands of an extraordinary performer.

Nature has provided against the disagreeable effects that would result from the dismemberment of trees, by giving to those which are the most common a great irregularity of outline, admitting of disproportion without deformity. Symmetry in the forms of natural objects becomes wearisome by making too great a demand upon the attention required for observing the order and relations of the different parts. But if the objects in the landscape be irregular, both in their forms and their distribution, we make no effort to attend to the relations of parts to the whole, because no such harmony is indicated. Such a scene has the beauty of repose. The opposite effect is observed in works of architecture, in which irregularity puzzles the mind to discover the mutual relations of parts, and becomes disagreeable by disturbing our calculation and disappointing our curiosity. The charm of art is variety combined with uniformity; the charm of nature is variety without uniformity. Nature speaks to us in prose, art in verse.

Though we always admire a perfectly symmetrical oak or elm, because such perfection is rare, it will be admitted that the irregular forms of trees are more productive of agreeable impressions on the

mind. The oak, one of the most interesting of all trees, is, in an important sense, absolutely ugly, especially when old age has increased its picturesque attractions. Indeed, if we could always reason correctly on the subjects of our consciousness, we should find that a very small part of that complex quality which we call beauty yields any organic pleasure to the sight. The charm of most of the objects in this category exists only in our imaginations. In trees and the general objects of the landscape we look neither for symmetry nor proportion; the absence of these qualities is, therefore, never disagreeable. It is the nonfulfilment of some expectation, or the apparently imperfect supply of some important want, that offends the sight, as when a conspicuous gap occurs in some finely proportioned work of art.

SONG

BY THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK

FOR the tender beech and the sapling oak,
That grow by the shadowy rill,

You may cut down both at a single stroke,
You may cut down which you will.

But this you must know, that as long as they grow,
Whatever change may be,

You can never teach either oak or beech

To be aught but a greenwood tree.

A FRANK AVOWAL

BY N. P. WILLIS

From Outdoors at Idlewild

I SAID, just now, that I had not yet planted a single tree at Idlewild. This is half a betrayal of a weakness that I feel growing upon me; and, having been reminded to-day of what I have once put in print from quite an opposite feeling, I may as well make a clean breast, and so, perhaps, get the better of it. In our current of life we have eddies of these quiet side-weaknesses - a string of them. At fourteen we begin to be secretly nervous lest our beard should be belated. Whiskers pretty well outlined, there awakens an unconfessed wonder and indignation that the world does not seem ready for our particular genius. Soon after, we are mortified that even our guardian angel, reading our hearts, should know how hard it is to smile with contempt because papas do not think us "a good match." The struggle of life comes; and, with the current swifter and deeper, there is an interval, perhaps, when the eddies of secret weakness find no slack-water for play. But, that past, we begin to be sensitive about our age and our first gray hairs; and when that is scarce over, there comes another feeling - the weakness that I speak of the secret reason (though scarce before recognized and brought fairly to the light)