These changes
fascinate the eye, keep the soul awake, and save the scenery from the
comparatively monotonous character of landscapes in less varying climes.
And for my own part, I cordially echo the sentiment of Wordsworth, who
when conversing with Mrs. Hemans about the scenery of the Lakes in the
North of England, observed: "I would not give up the mists that
_spiritualize_ our mountains for all the blue skies of Italy."
Though Mrs. Stowe, the American authoress already quoted as one of the
admirers of England, duly appreciates the natural grandeur of her own
land, she was struck with admiration and delight at the aspect of our
English landscapes. Our trees, she observes, "are of an order of
nobility and they wear their crowns right kingly." "Leaving out of
account," she adds, "our _mammoth arboria_, the English Parks have trees
as fine and effective as ours, and when I say their trees are of an
order of nobility, I mean that they (the English) pay a reverence to
them such as their magnificence deserves."
Walter Savage Landor, one of the most accomplished and most highly
endowed both by nature and by fortune of our living men of letters, has
done, or rather has tried to do, almost as much for his country in the
way of enriching its collection of noble trees as Evelyn himself. He
laid out L70,000 on the improvement of an estate in Monmouthshire, where
he planted and fenced half a million of trees, and had a million more
ready to plant, when the conduct of some of his tenants, who spitefully
uprooted them and destroyed the whole plantation, so disgusted him with
the place, that he razed to the ground the house which had cost him
L8,000, and left the country.
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