it was struck by lightning. It is now a mere trunk,
with one twisted bough stretching up into the air, leaving a green
branch at the end of it. This sturdy wreck is much valued by the
Squire; he calls it his standard-bearer, and compares it to a veteran
warrior beaten down in battle, but bearing up his banner to the last.
He has actually had a fence built round it, to protect it as much as
possible from further injury.

It is with great difficulty that the Squire can ever be brought to
have any tree cut down on his estate. To some he looks with reverence,
as having been planted by his ancestors; to others with a kind of
paternal affection, as having been planted by himself; and he feels a
degree of awe in bringing down, with a few strokes of the axe, what it
has cost centuries to build up. I confess I cannot but sympathize, in
some degree, with the good Squire on the subject. Though brought up in
a country overrun with forests, where trees are apt to be considered
mere encumbrances, and to be laid low without hesitation or remorse,
yet I could never see a fine tree hewn down without concern. The
poets, who are naturally lovers of trees, as they are of every thing
that is beautiful, have artfully awakened great interest in their
favour, by representing them as the habitations of sylvan deities;
insomuch that every great tree had its tutelar genius, or a nymph,
whose existence was limited to its duration. Evelyn, in his Sylva,
makes several pleasing and fanciful allusions to this superstition.
"As the fall," says he, "of a very aged oak, giving a crack like
thunder, has often been heard at many miles' distance; constrained
though I often am to fell them with reluctancy, I do not at any time
remember to have heard the groans of those nymphs (grieving to be
dispossessed of their ancient habitations) without some emotion and
pity." And again, in alluding to a violent storm that had devastated
the woodlands, he says, "Methinks I still hear, sure I am that I still
feel, the dismal groans of our forests; the late dreadful hurricane
having subverted so many thousands of goodly oaks, prostrating the
trees, laying them in ghastly postures, like whole regiments fallen in
battle by the sword of the conqueror, and crushing all that grew
beneath them. The public accounts," he adds, "reckon no less than
three thousand brave oaks in one part only of the forest of Dean blown
down."

I have paused more than once in the wilderness of Ame