pining in decay and struggling for life, fills the mind with mournful
images and ineffectual wishes.

ABERBROTHICK

As we knew sorrow and wishes to be vain, it was now our business to mind
our way. The roads of Scotland afford little diversion to the traveller,
who seldom sees himself either encountered or overtaken, and who has
nothing to contemplate but grounds that have no visible boundaries, or
are separated by walls of loose stone. From the bank of the Tweed to St.
Andrews I had never seen a single tree, which I did not believe to have
grown up far within the present century. Now and then about a
gentleman's house stands a small plantation, which in Scotch is called a
policy, but of these there are few, and those few all very young. The
variety of sun and shade is here utterly unknown. There is no tree for
either shelter or timber. The oak and the thorn is equally a stranger,
and the whole country is extended in uniform nakedness, except that in
the road between Kirkaldy and Cowpar, I passed for a few yards between
two hedges. A tree might be a show in Scotland as a horse in Venice. At
St. Andrews Mr. Boswell found only one, and recommended it to my notice;
I told him that it was rough and low, or looked as if I thought so. This,
said he, is nothing to another a few miles off. I was still less
delighted to hear that another tree was not to be seen nearer. Nay, said
a gentleman that stood by, I know but of this and that tree in the
county.

The Lowlands of Scotland had once undoubtedly an equal portion of woods
with other countries. Forests are every where gradually diminished, as
architecture and cultivation prevail by the increase of people and the
introduction of arts. But I believe few regions have been denuded like
this, where many centuries must have passed in waste without the least
thought of future supply. Davies observes in his account of Ireland,
that no Irishman had ever planted an orchard. For that negligence some
excuse might be drawn from an unsettled state of life, and the
instability of property; but in Scotland possession has long been secure,
and inheritance regular, yet it may be doubted whether before the Union
any man between Edinburgh and England had ever set a tree.

Of this improvidence no other account can be given than that it probably
began in times of tumult, and continued because it had begun. Established
custom is not easily broken, till some great event shak