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A delightful illustrated manuscript commonplace of uncommonly coherent design, assembling relevant quotations from Shakespeare, Milton, Byron, Cowper, Spenser, Coleridge etc. alongside illustrations of ten British trees – Beech, Willow, White Poplar, Cedar, Elm, Pine, Oak, Birch, Yew, and Walnut.

The oval frontispiece view of Windsor is the most elaborate scene, the Castle behind, the river in the foreground with swans, a boating party and some fishermen; the accompanying quotations come from Gray’s Elegy (inevitably), Pope’s Windsor Forest, and, more surprisingly, Burns’s Despondency.

The artist remains sadly anonymous; particularly adept at foliage, he or she enlivens the drawings with minor details – deer resting beneath the beech, a country house behind the oak, the yew surrounded by gravestones.

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