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.
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