תמונות בעמוד
PDF

and agreeable masses, which may decorate the surface, is so great, that where the place will not admit of one, another is always ready; and as no delicacy of finishing is required, no minute exactness is worth recarding, great effects will not be disconcerted by small bbstructions, and little disappointments.

The contrasts, however, of asses and of groupes, must not be too strong, where greatness is the character of the wood; for unity is essential to greatness: but if direct opposites be placed close together, the wood is no longer one object; it is only a confused collection of several separate plantations; whereas if the progress be gradual from the one to the other, shapes and tints widely different may assemble on the same surface; and each should occupy a considerable space: a single tree, or a small cluster of trees, in the midst of an extensive wood, is in size but a speck, and in colour but a spot; the croupes and the masses must be large to produce any sensible variety.

Yet single trees in the midst of a wood, though seldom of use to diversify a surface, often deserve particular regard as individuals, and are important to the greatness of the whole. The superficies of a shrubby thicket, how extensive soever, does not convey the same iipas of magnificence, as a hanging wood; and yet at first sight, the difference is not always very discernible: it often requires time to collect the several circumstances in the latter, which suggest the elevation to which that broad expanse of foliage is raised, the vastness of the trunks which support it so high, the extent of the branches which spread it so far: when these circumstances, all of grandeur, croud together uron the mind, they dignify the space, which without them might indifferently be, the superficies of a thicket, or the surface of a wood: but a few large trees, not emiatt above all about them, but distinguished by some slight separation, and obvious at a glance, immediately resolve the doubt; they are noble objects in themselves; become the situation, and serve as a measure to the rest. On the same principle, trees which are thin of boughs and of leaves, those whose branchos t end upwards, or whose heads rise in slender cones, havo an appearance more of airiness than of importance, and are blemishes in a wood where greatness is the prevailing idea. Those, on the contrary, whose branches hang directly down, have a breadth of head which suits with such a situation, though their own peculiar beauty be lost in it.

These decorations are natural grances, which never dorogate from greatness; and a number of shades playing on the surface, over a variety of those beautiful forms into which it may be cast, enliven that sameness which, while it prevails, reduces the morit of one of the noblest objects in nature to that of mere space. To fill that space with objects of beauty; to delight the eye after it has been struck; to fix the attention where it has been caught; and to prolong astonishment into adiration, are purposes not unworthy of the greatest designs; and in the cxecution productive of embellishments, which in style are not unequal to scenes of richness and magnificence.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors]
[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][subsumed][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors]
« הקודםהמשך »