to do so, more or less in proportion as it ramifies fast
or slowly. In badly grown trees, the boughs are apt to fall short of
the curve, or at least, there are so many jags and openings that its
symmetry is interrupted; and in young trees, the impatience of the upper
shoots frequently breaks the line; but in perfect and mature trees,
every bough does its duty completely, and the line of curve is quite
filled up, and the mass within it unbroken, so that the tree assumes the
shape of a dome, as in the oak, or, in tall trees, of a pear, with the
stalk downmost. The old masters paid no attention whatsoever to this
great principle. They swing their boughs about, anywhere and everywhere;
each stops or goes on just as it likes, nor will it be possible, in any
of their works, to find a single example in which any symmetrical curve
is indicated by the extremities.[75]

But I need scarcely tell any one in the slightest degree acquainted with
the works of Turner, how rigidly and constantly he adheres to this
principle of nature; taking in his highest compositions the perfect
ideal form, every spray being graceful and varied in itself, but
inevitably terminating at the assigned limit, and filling up the curve
without break or gap; in his lower works, taking less perfect form, but
invariably hinting the constant tendency in all, and thus, in spite of
his abundant complexity, he arranges his trees under simpler and grander
forms than any other artist, even among the moderns.

Sec. 27. Foliage painting on the Continent.

It was above asserted that J. D. Harding is, after Turner, the greatest
master of foliage in Europe; I ought, however, to state that my
knowledge of the modern landscape of Germany is very limited, and that,
even with respect to France and Italy, I judge rather from the general
tendency of study and character of mind visible in the annual
Exhibition of the Louvre, and in some galleries of modern paintings at
Milan, Venice, and Florence, than from any detailed acquaintance with
the works of their celebrated painters. Yet I think I can hardly be
mistaken. I have seen nothing to induce me to take a closer survey; no
life knowledge or emotion in any quarter; nothing but the meanest and
most ignorant copyism of vulgar details, coupled with a style of
conception resembling that of the various lithographic ideals on the
first leaves of the music of pastoral ballads. An exception ought,
however, to be made in favor of Fre