A GROVE

THE FORMATION OF ONE WITH A VIEW TO THE PICTURESQUE.

The prevailing character of a grove is beauty; fine trees are lovely objects; a grove is an assemblage of them; in which every individual retains much of its own peculiar elegance; and whatever it loses is transferred to the superior beauty of the whole. To a grove, therefore, which admits of endless variety in the disposition of the trees, differences in their shapes and their greens are seldom very important, and sometimes they are detrimental. Strong contrasts scatter trees which are thinly planted, and which have not the connection of underwood; they no longer form one plantation; they are a number of single trees. A thick grove is not indeed exposed to this mischief, and certain situations may recommend different shapes and different greens for their effects upon the surface; but in the outline they are seldom much regarded. The eye attracted into the depth of the grove passes by little circumstances at the entrance; even varieties in the form of the line do not always engage the attention they are not so apparent as in a continued thicket, and are scarcely seen, if they are not considerable.

But the surface and the outline are not the only circumstances to be attended to. Though a grove be beautiful as an object, it is besides delightful as a spot to walk or to sit in; and the choice and the disposition of the trees for effects within are therefore a principal consideration. Mere irregularity alone will not please: strict order is there more agreeable than absolute confusion; and some meaning better than none. A regular plantation has a degree of beauty; but it gives no satisfaction, because we know that the same number of trees might be more beautifully arranged. A disposition, however, in which the lines only are broken, without varying the distances, is less natural than any; for though we cannot find straight lines in a forest, we are habituated to them in the hedge-rows of fields; but neither in wild nor in cultivated nature do we ever see trees equidistant from each other: that regularity belongs to art alone. The distances therefore should be strikingly different; the trees should gather into groups, or stand in various ir regular lines, and describe several figures: the intervals between them should be contrasted both in shape and in dimensions: a large space should in some places be quite open; in others the trees should be so close

;

together, as hardly to leave a passage be tween them; and in others as far apart as the connection will allow. In the forms and the varieties of these groups, these lines, and these openings, principally consists the interior beauty of a grove.

The consequence of variety in the disposition, is variety in the light and shade of the grove; which may be improved by the choice of the trees. Some are impene. trable to the fiercest sunbeam; others let in here and there a ray-between the large masses of their foliage; and others, thin both of boughs and of leaves, only checker the ground. Every degree of light and shade, from a glare to obscurity, may be managed, partly by the number, and partly by the texture of the trees. Differences only in the manner of their growths have also corresponding effects; there is a closeness under those whose branches descend low and spread wide, a space and liberty where the arch above is high, and frequent transitions from the one to the other are very pleasing. These still are not all the varieties of which the interior of a grove is capable; trees, indeed, whose branches nearly reach the ground, being each a sort of thicket, are inconsistent with an open plantation; but though some of the characteristic distinctions are thereby excluded, other varieties more minute succeed in their place; for the freedom of passage throughout brings every tree in its turn near to the eye, and subjects even differences in foliage to observation. These, slight as they may seem, are agreeable when they occur; it is true they are not regretted when wanting, but a defect of ornament is not necessarily a blemish.

For the Table Book. GROVES AND HIGH PLACES. The heathens considered it unlawful to build temples, because they thought no temple spacious enough for the sun. Hence the saying, Mundus universus est templum solis, "The whole world is a temple of the sun." Thus their god Terminus, and others, were worshipped in temples openroofed. Hills and mountains became the fittest places for their idolatry; and these consecrated hills are the "high places" so often forbidden in the sacred writings. the number of their gods increased, so the number of their consecrated hills multiplied; and from them their gods and goddesses took names, as Mercurius Cyllenius, Venus Erycina, Jupiter Capitolinus. To beautify these holy hills, the places of their idola

As

trous worship, they beset them with trees; and thence arose the consecration of groves and woods, from whence also their idols were often named. At length certain choice and select trees began to be consecrated. The French magi, termed Dryadæ, worshipped the oak; the Etrurians worshipped an elm-tree; and amongst the Celta, a tall oak was the very idol of Jupiter.

Amongst the Israelites, idolatry began under the judges Othniel and Ehud, and became so common, that they had peculiar priests, whom they termed the prophets of the grove and idols of the grove.

Christians, in the consecration of their churches, make special choice of peculiar saints, by whose name they are called. The heathens consecrated their groves to peculiar idols; whence in profane authors we read of Diana Nemorensis, Diana Arduenna, Albunea Dea, &c., all receiving their names from the groves in which they were worshipped. The idol itself is sometimes called a grove" Josiah brought out the grove from the house of the Lord." It is probable, that in this idol was portraited the form and similitude of a grove, and that from thence it was called a grove, as those similitudes of Diana's temple, made by Demetrius, were termed temples of Diana.

These customs appear exemplified by inscriptions on coins, medals, in churchyards, and the various buildings commemorated by marble, flowers, and durable and perishing substances. J. R. P.

The groves round London within a few years have been nearly destroyed by the speculating builders.

J. R. P.'s note may be an excuse for observing, that the "grove" best known, perhaps, to the inhabitants of London is that at Camberwell-a spacious roadway and fine walks, above half a mile in length, between rows of stately trees, from the beginning of the village and ascending the hill to its summit, from whence there is, or rather was, the finest burst of scenery the eye can look upon within the same distance from London. The view is partially obstructed by new buildings, and the character of the "grove" itself has been gradually injured by the breaking up of the adjacent grounds and meadows into brickfields, and the flanking of its sides with town-like houses. This grove has been the theme of frequent song. Dr. Lettsom first gave celebrity to it by his writings, and pleasant residence on its eastern extremity;

and it was further famed by Mr. Maurice in an elegant poem, with delightful engravings on wood. After the death of the benevolent physician, and before the decease of the illustrator of "Indian Antiquities," much of the earth, consecrated by their love and praise, "passed through the fire" in sacrifice to the Moloch of improvement. In a year or two “Grove Hill" may be properly named "Grove Street."

Hampstead, however, is the "place of groves ;"-how long it may remain so is a secret in the bosom of speculators and builders. Its first grove, townward, is the noble private avenue from the Hampstead-road to Belsize-house, in the valley between Primrose hill and the hill whereon the church stands, with Mr. Memory-Corner Thompson's remarkable house and lodge at the corner of the pleasant highway to the little village of West-end. In the neighbourhood of Hampstead church, and between that edifice and the heath, there are several old groves. Winding southwardly from the heath, there is a charming little grove in Well Walk, with a bench at the end; whereon I last saw poor Keats, the poet of the "Pot of Basil," sitting and sobbing his dying breath into a handkerchief,— gleaning parting looks towards the quiet landscape he had delighted in-musing, as in his Ode to a Nightingale.

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
"Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,

But being too happy in thine happiness,-
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,.
In some melodious plot

Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!

O for a beaker full of the warm south,

Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,

With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,

And purple-stained mouth;

That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim: Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret

Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, Where youth grows pale,and spectre-thin, and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow

And leaden-eyed despairs,
Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,

Or new love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

The ancient manor of West Wickham was vested in sir Samuel Lennard, bart., from whom it passed to his daughter Mary, the present dowager lady Farnaby, who resides in the manor-house, and with whose permission we were permitted a look at the hall of the mansion, which contains in the windows some painted remains of armorial bearings on glass, removed from the windows of the church. A view in Hasted's "History of Kent" represents the towers of this mansion to have been surmounted by sextagon cones, terminated at the top with the fleur de lis, a bearing in the family arms; these pinnacles have been taken down, the roofs of the towers flattened, and the walls castellated. charter of free warren, in the eleventh year of Edward II., a weekly market was granted to West Wickham, but it is no longer held, and Wickham, as a town, has lost its importance.

By a

The manor-house and church are distant from the village about half a mile, with

In

an intervening valley beautifully pleasant, in which is a road from Hayes Common to Addington and Croydon. The church is on a hill, with an old lich-gate, like that at Beckenham, though not so large. At this spot W. sat down, and made the sketch here represented by his graver. Although I had been in the edifice before, I could not avoid another visit to it. At the north-east corner, near the communion table, are many ancient figured tiles sadly neglected, loose in the pavement; some displaced and lying one upon the other. Worst of all, and I mean offence to no one, but surely there is blame somewhere,-the ancient stone font, which is in all respects perfect, has been removed from its original situation, and is thrown into a corner. its place, at the west end, from a nick (not a niche) between the seats, a little trivetlike iron bracket swings in and out, and upon it is a wooden hand-bowl, such as scullions use in a kitchen sink; and in this hand-bowl, of about twelve inches diameter, called a font, I found a common blueand-white Staffordshire-ware halfpint basin. It might be there still; but, while inveighing to my friend W. against the depravation of the fine old font, and the substitution of such a paltry modicum, in my vehemence I fractured the crockery. I felt that I was angry, and, perhaps, I sinned; but I made restitution beyond the extent that would replace the baptismal slopbasin.

The fragments of old painted glass in the windows of this church are really fine.

The best are, St. Anne teaching the virgin to read; whole lengths of St. Christopher wading, with the infant Saviour bearing the globe in his hand; an elderly female saint, very good; and a skeleton with armour before him. Some years ago, collectors of curiosities paid their attentions to these windows, and carried off specimens: since then wires have been put up on the outside. On the walls are hung pennons, with an iron helmet, sword, spurs, gloves, and other remains of a funereal pageant. A small organ stands on the floor: the partitions of some of the pewings are very ancient

Topography.

GODSTOW NUNNERY,

NEAR OXFORD.

The wild-flower waves, in lonely bloom,
On Godstow's desolated wall:
There thin shades flit through twilight gloom,
And murmured accents feebly fall.
The aged hazel nurtures there
Its hollow fruit, so seeming fair,
And lightly throws its humble shade,
Where Rosamonda's form is laid,

The rose of earth, the sweetest flower
That ever graced a monarch's breast,
In vernal beauty's loveliest hour,

Beneath that sod was laid to rest.
In vain the bower of love around
The Dædalean path was wound:
Alas! that jealous hate should find
The clue for love alone designed!

The venomed bowl,-the mandate dire,-
The menaced steel's uplifted glare,-
The tear, that quenched the blue eye's fire,
The humble, ineffectual prayer :-
All these shall live, recorded long
In tragic and romantic. song,
And long a moral charm impart,
To melt and purify the heart.
A nation's gem, a monarch's pride,
In youth, in loveliness, she died:
The morning sun's ascending ray
Saw none so fair, so blest, so gay:
Ere evening came, her funeral knell
Was tolled by Godstow's convent bell.

The marble tomb, the illumined shrine,

Their ineffectual splendour gave: Where slept in earth the maid divine, The votive silk was seen to wave. To her, as to a martyred saint, His vows the weeping pilgrim poured:

A small chapel, and a wall, enclosing an ample space, are all now remaining of the Benedictine nunnery at Godstow. A hazel grows near the chapel, the fruit of which is always apparently perfect, but is invariably found to be hollow.

This nunnery derives its chief interest from having been the burial-place of Rosamond. The principal circumstances of her story are thus related by Stowe: "Rosamond, the fair daughter of Walter lord Clifford, concubine to Henry II., (poisoned by queen Eleanor, as some thought,) died at Woodstock, (A. D. 1177,) where king Henry had made for her a house of wonderful working; so that no man or woman might come to her, but he that was instructed by the king, or such as were right secret with him touching the matter. This house, after some, was named Labyrinthus, or Daedalus work, which was wrought like unto a knot in a garden, called a maze : but it was commonly said, that lastly the queen came to her by a clue of thread, or silk, and so dealt with her, that she lived not long after but when she was dead, she was buried at Godstow, in a house of nuns, beside Oxford, with these verses upon her tomb:

Hic jacet in tumba, Rosa mundi, non Rosa munda:

Non redolet, sed olet, quæ redolere solet."

After her death, she appears to have been considered as a saint, from the following inscription on a stone cross, which, Leland says, was erected near the nunnery:

Qui meat huc, oret, signumque salutis adoret,
Utque sibi detur veniam, Rosamunda precetur. 1

A fanatical priest, Hugh, bishop of Lincoln, visiting the nunnery at Godstow, and observing a tomb covered with silk, and splendidly illuminated, which he found, on inquiry, to be the tomb of Rosamond, commanded her to be taken up, and buried without the church, lest the Christian religion should grow into contempt. This brutal order was instantly obeyed: but "the chaste sisters," says Speed, "gathered her bones, and put them in a perfumed bag, enclosing them so in lead, and laid them again in the church, under a fair large grave-stone, about whose edges a fillet of brass was inlaid, and thereon written her name and praise: these bones were at the suppression of the nunnery so found.”*