From three to
four hundred yards is a length which will display the elevation well,
and will not become tiresome from continued monotony. The kind of tree
must, of course, be regulated by circumstances; but the foliage must be
unequally disposed, so as to let in passages of light across the path,
and cause the motion of any object across it to change, like an
undulating melody, from darkness to light. It should meet at the top, so
as to cause twilight, but not obscurity; and the idea of a vaulted roof,
without rigidity. The ground should be green, so that the sunlight may
tell with force wherever it strikes. Now, this kind of rich and shadowy
vista is found in its perfection only in England: it is an attribute of
green country; it is associated with all our memories of forest freedom,
of our wood-rangers, and yeomen with the "doublets of the Lincoln
green;" with our pride of ancient archers, whose art was fostered in
such long and breezeless glades; with our thoughts of the merry chases
of our kingly companies, when the dewy antlers sparkled down the
intertwined paths of the windless woods, at the morning echo of the
hunter's horn; with all, in fact, that once contributed to give our land
its ancient name of "merry" England; a name which, in this age of steam
and iron, it will have some difficulty in keeping.
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