The Washington union. [volume] (City of Washington [D.C.]) 1857-1859, 1857-10-10
WEEKLY MISCELLANY OF LITERATURE AND ART

love Of trees has deep root fixed in the popular heart
which cannot be easily torn up Nevertheless. il is
deniAble that appeals to the woodmAn less fire.
qent than they should be indeed whatever may be the
individual sentiment the subject il would that
our corporate authorities instead Of inplong woodmen
10 touch not single bough, forever giving them
directions Iop OF all branches within reach Of their IA
tai shears To judge from their acts, their version Of
NORRIS song would read
voodlDzn, pare hat tres,
Leave single boash r
Our attention has been drawn this matter by the
following extract from article HuxANuE TEEEs,
published some months since in Boston magazine a
promising periodical which in obedience 70 law that
seems 70 govern the literary enterprises of the modern
Athens" died in its infancy
But we are wandering from immediate subject-
cruelty The American seems to have hered-
ary antipathy To Indians and trees both having been
the foes he had first encounter in conqueTng himself
home here in the West. When every ee-trunk might
be the ambush of skulking enemy whose war whoop
made the hair stand on end As convenient hAie 70 e
insecure scalp $50 does Nature adapt means TO ends man
might Ice pardoned for wishing 10 see as much cleared
ground about his homestead as possible But now thai
our crowns are in danger OF page, except nom some
of the many inventions for promoting the growth OF ha
it would seem be time TO bury the halchetand the
saw along with ii.
We start with the proposition that Nature knows
vast deal better how tree ought to grow than any ay
forestcesrecally when fuel is dear and every limb he
cuts of adds to the size Of his wood pile The common
theory to be precisely the reverse OF this and the
recipe or producing handsome tree Is simply stout
with blockhead at one end o. II and saw al the
other The instinct for work Is strong that often
observe who have nothing TO do begin to pare their
nails and in the way our boards OF seleomen and
aldermen, at loss for other employment send somebody
round to clip the The lgneons sympathies Of
boards one would think should be sensitive. Al
phonso CASTLE thought be could have given useful ad
vice had he been present at the creation but we doubt
whether he committee Of city-fthers, could
have designed oak elm which would have suited
us better the whole than those which we have received
without their collaboration
Our English kinsInen who show a rational poetic
sense landscape gardening than in any other way
display great magnanimty In their treatment of trees
We have finer specimens OF the American mira IN
England than here, especially among the evergreens be
there the system consists In leaving the tree wholly
TO its own whiIns. That is the best government for
trees which governs least They may be trusted safely
with squatter sovereignty hat tree graceful
an elm that has been doctored
1--WE are as wanton the destruction Of trees
brarous in our treatment of them We let loose party
of wild Irishmen structure that Nature has been
centuries in building for whose ornament the seasons
have corlspred structure 10 whose divine proportion
the Parthenon only aspres from afar at whose acery
and leafwok Gothic art desars the shifting arabesques
of whose shadows defy the cunning OF Saraeec hands
and do it that may run fence straghter or avod
graceful in path Having accomplished this de-
sructon gIavely go to work and plant bean pole or
two with bunch Of leaves at their upper ends to make
| good the place of this fallen majesty.
1--WE propose to establish society for the prevention
Of cruelty trees We shall resume the subject again
and shall perhaps lay before readers the report Of
meeting Of Hamadryads with which we have been favor
Cd BY young sprg who present. but who has
Nv done a. thorough justice to the theme DR. Holmes did
some thirty years ago. AT any rate il win be something
to the speak for themselves even they not
rs effective the stump as Dodonean oaks
| HALIFAX LAw-The woollen manufacture In Halifax
England being very great and prodgious quantities Of
cloths Sc being continually the and liable to be
stolen the its first incorporation empowered
to punish capifay any criminal convicted of stealing
the value Of upwards Of thirteen pence half penny bya par
ticular engine known by the Of the Maiden oe
what resembling the guillotne) which beheaded the Of
fender in a moment; that il became common re-
mark throughout England, addressed to any one who
showed symptoms Of unfasTness IN dealing ''1ou go
Ia HALIFAX r. and to this day we hear the same
preston used in the United States it being supposed
here that the Halifax of Nova Scotia is the place Of de-
signation The town Of Hull at the time noted
for its strict police whence the alteratve prayer Of
From He'll Hull and Halifax, good Lord deliver us T.
DEArH has been busy of late among European artists
1t i not long since that Paul Delaroche and Maurice
Rezsch laid down their magic pencils forever and the for
egn obituary for the past month has added to their
names those Of Thomas Twins, r. A, and Mr. Shells
Of the Royal Academy of Scotland The productions Of
the former who died at the advanced age Of seventy
five having been frequently engraved well known in
this country those of the latter who is repued to have
been the best painter of animals Scotland has yet pro-
dnced are not so familiar here.
The foreign journals also announce that Sir Edwin
Iandseer is suffering from maady akin to softening Of
the brain and that there to he hope Of fur
ther practice Of his profession This is sad to the
lovers of art In this country where Landsee works
better known than those Of any other modern British
painter though we believe only Of his pictures has
ever been seen this side Of the Atlantic The large
number Of truthful engraved copies Of them, however
which have been sold in this country has served to render
his productions very familiar TO the American public
who will greve to learn that the fine brain which
ceiyed such marvels of art as THE Monarch of the
Glen peace and War, Might and Morning" and
that most touching of pictures, The Shepherds Chief
Mourner' is likely to be incapable of thought
The following account of Retzsch whose death we have
| alluded to above viii be read with interest:
This distinguished German artist who recently died
at village near Dresden born December g. lT79 at
Dresden He displayed from his earliest childhood sin
ular love for The romantic and picturesque Every v-
tor of the beautiful country which lies around the lovely
Florence venerable Saxony would towards the end Of
the last century, frequently encounter gentle youth,
roaming about in the adjacent woods with gun upon
his shoulder shooting birds and hunting the deer This
youth had dreamy look which would sometimes kinde
with emotion when il fell upon the landscape, the
suns golden rays enveloped the neghboring Harz noun
ains with wall Of fire, otherwise bathed with inea
urlSr