CHAP. CXIIi.

coni'fehjK. ce'diius.

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plied,’ as Ezekiel says, ‘ and his branches become longwhich David callsspreading abroad. His very boughs are equal to the stem of a fir or a chest-nut. The second characteristic is, what Ezekiel , with great beauty andaptness, calls his shadowing shroud. No tree in the forest is more remarkablethan the cedar for its close-woven leafy canopy. Ezekiel ’s cedar is markedas a tree of full and perfect growth, from the circumstance of its top beingamong the thick boughs. Every young tree has a leading branch or two,which continue spiring above the rest till the tree has attained its full size :then it becomes in the language of the nurseryman, clump-headed; but, in thelanguage of Eastern sublimity, its top is among the thick boughs; that is, nodistinction of any spiry head, or leading branch, appears; the head and thebranches are all mixed together. This is generally, in all trees, the state inwhich they are most perfect and most beautiful; and this is the state ofEzekiel’s cedar. But, though Ezekiel hath given us this accurate descriptionof the cedar, he hath left its strength, which is its chief characteristic,untouched.But the reason is evident: the cedar is here introduced as an emblem ofAssyria ; which, though vast and wide-spreading, and come to full maturity,was, in fact, on the eve of destruction. Strength, therefore, was the last ideawhich the prophet wished to suggest. Strength is a relative term, comparedwith opposition. The Assyrian was strong, compared with the powers onearth; hut weak compared with the arm of the Almighty, which broughthim to destruction. So his type, the cedar, was stronger than any ofthe trees of the forest; but weak in comparison with the axe, whichcut him off’ and left him (as the prophet expresses the vastness of hisruin) spread upon the mountains and in the valleys, while the nations shookat the sound of his fall. Such is the grandeur and form of the cedar ofLebanon. Its mantling foliage, or shadowing shroud, as Ezekiel calls it, isits greatest beauty; which arises from the horizontal growth of its branchesforming a kind of sweeping irregular penthouse. And, when to the idea ofbeauty that of strength is added, by the pyramidal form of the stem, andthe robustness of the limbs, the tree is complete in all its beauty and ma-jesty. In these climates, indeed, we cannot expect to see the cedar in suchperfection. The forest of Lebanon is, perhaps, the only part of the worldwhere its growth is perfect ; yet we may in some degree perceive its beautyand majesty from the paltry resemblances of it at this distance from its nativesoil. In its youth, it is often with us a vigorous thriving plant; and, if theleading branch is not bound to a pole (as many people deform their cedars),but left to take its natural course, and guide the stem after it in some irregularwaving line, it is often an object of great beauty. But, in its maturer age, thebeauty of the English cedar is generally gone: it becomes shriveled, de-formed, and stunted ; its body increases, but its limbs shrink and wither.Thus it never gives us its two leading qualities together. In its youth, wehave some idea of its beauty', without its strength; and in its advanced age,we have some idea of its strength, without its beauty : the imagination, there-fore, by joining together the two different periods of its age in this climate,way form some conception of the grandeur of the cedar in its own climate,where its strength and beauty are united. The best specimen of this tree Iever saw in England was at Hillingdon, near Uxbridge. The perpendicularheight of it was 53 ft., its horizontal expanse 96 ft., and its girt 15 ft. 6 in. WhenI saw it in 1776, it was about 118 years of age; and, being then completelyclump-headed, it was a very noble and picturesque tree. In the high winds,ebout the beginning of the year 1790, this noble cedar was blown down. Itsstem, when cut, was 5 ft. in diameter.” ( For. Seen., i. p. 81.) On these obser-vations of Gilpin we shall only remark, that there are now, 1837, 60 yearsI r Gilpin saw the cedar at Hillingdon, many hundred cedars in Eng-j®d more grand and picturesque than that tree; and, not to go furtherban Syon, Whitton, and Pain’s Hill, there are at these places, cedars whichare both higher, and cover a larger space with their branches, than that at"uhngdon. With respect to the age which Gilpin assigns to the Hillingdon

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