est, which is only to be seen in
temperate climates, and in those parts of a kingdom which have not often
changed proprietors, but have remained in unproductive beauty (or at
least, furnishing timber only), the garden of the wealthier population.
It is to be seen in no other country, perhaps, so well as in England. In
other districts, we find extensive masses of black forest, but not the
mixture of sunny glade, and various foliage, and dewy sward, which we
meet with in the richer park districts of England. This kind of country
is always surgy, oceanic, and massy, in its outline: it never affords
blue distances, unless seen from a height; and, even then, the nearer
groups are large, and draw away the attention from the background. The
under soil is kept cool by the shade, and its vegetation rich; so that
the prevailing color, except for a few days at the fall of the leaf, is
a fresh green. A good example of this kind of country is the view from
Richmond Hill.

86. Now, first, let us consider what sort of feeling this green country
excites; and, in order to do so, be it observed, that anything which is
apparently enduring and unchangeable gives us an impression rather of
future, than of past, duration of existence; but anything which being
perishable, and from its nature subject to change, has yet existed to a
great age, gives us an impression of antiquity, though, of course, none
of stability. A mountain, for instance (not geologically speaking, for
then the furrows on its brow give it age as visible as was ever wrinkled
on human forehead, but considering it as it appears to ordinary eyes),
appears to be beyond the influence of change: it does not put us in mind
of its past existence, by showing us any of the effect of time upon
itself; we do not feel that it is old, because it is not approaching any
kind of death; it is a mass of unsentient undecaying matter, which, if
we think about it, we discover must have existed for some time, but
which does not tell this fact to our feelings, or, rather, which tells
us of no time at which it came into existence; and therefore, gives us
no standard by which to measure its age, which, unless measured, cannot
be distinctly felt. But a very old forest tree is a thing subject to the
same laws of nature as ourselves: it is an energetic being, liable to an
approaching death; its age is written on every spray; and, because we
see it is susceptible of life and annihilation, like our own, we