There is more than a touch of the sentimental, and even the melancholic, in this passage. How much of it is a true reflection of the feelings that Hill had when he really was a young man living at Cascumpec and how much was simply a literary pose influenced by the fashions of the 1830s is an open question.861 We may wonder whether he really ”in extreme youth” wandered on his own through ”the wild and uncultivated tracts” 'rejoicing’ in the ”deep but cheerful solitudes”? And was it really only in the wilderness that he "ever felt the full pleasure of existence, without weariness and the desire of change”? Inconsistently, in the same passage he is not immune to the theme of progress (also in vcgue at the time), looking forward, as he does, to a time when the places of his 'cheerful solitudes’ will be replaced by ”flourishing towns and peopled villages”! Another author who on occasion expresses a similar contemplative attitude towards the forest is the naturalist Francis Bain who, though in others of his writings he is an objective scientific observer, could also not resist the temptation at times — both in his journal, and more particularly in his newspaper articles written for public consumption — to turn his write-ups into extended literary exercises that partake of aspects of the romantic.862 A good example is his description of his visit to a remnant of ”ancient forest” at North Wiltshire, in which the forest, through an extended literary metaphor, becomes a sort of ’cathedral of nature’: We went out on the Wiltshire road, about the head— waters of Howell’s Brook, to see the ancient forest in its solemn grandeur. We left the road, and penetrated into the twilight of its shadowy recesses. High overhead, in the far—extending roof of foliage, ran a deep swelling murmur, like the far off voice of the sea. Underneath, the giant trunks, crowded thick in shaded gloom, or standing more open, admitted stray glimpses of sunshine to gild the mighty hulks, twisted and gnarled, or mounting straight as cathedral columns. There were whisperings and rustlings of lighter foliage, pendant from the lofty arches. And the brown carpet ’neath our feet, woven by a thousand autumns, was gay with fairy plumes of delicate asphedum, and the lobed satiny leaves of the Pennsylvanian maple, and the little drooping oxalis, which, in June, bears snowy blossoms, 86‘ Williams (1989. p. 15) notes that “by the 18305 gloomy sentimentalism was a literary genre". “2 Bain 1868-1884; Bain 1882; Bain 1883. l have ‘trimmed’ the more florid parts from both of these latter extracts. 131 like white rows of choristers, bending low in the cathedral of nature. Bain actually did visit the forests that he describes. However, it is a question whether James B. Pollard ever visited what remained of the ‘virgin forests’ of the island before he wrote in 1898 his imaginative re-creation of what he supposed the forest on the site of Charlottetown to have been prior to its clearance 130 years before, for it appears to be entirely the product of his own imagination. Without discrimination he throws in every tree and animal that he can think of: Here through a dense forest, interspersed with tracts of swamp, thirteen miles of broad streets had to be opened. This virgin forest, comprised of evergreen fir trees, mingled with the verdant foliage of the oak, beech, birch, maple, ash and poplar, while the majestic pine and hemlock spread their branches over an undergrowth of hazel, elder, aspen, juniper, cedar and thick tangled brambles, and beneath their shady branches covevs of partridge, wild pidgeon, cranes, crows, hawks and owls and many other kind of the feathered creation found a cool retreat from the scorching rays of the summer’s sun; whilst other animals common to this woodland, such as the fierce wild cat, savage bear, and cunning fox had place of refuge amongst the underwood and thicket, where prowling in savage freedom, disturbed by no rustling of leaves or cracking of boughs, stealthily approached some unsuspecting victim, when with a fatal bound would overcome and destroy whatever it might be. Here from tree to tree, gay little squirrels were leaping, and bonny rabbits browsing at their leasure, while minks and musk—rats swarmed the creeks and streams 863 The forest as a place of recreation and pleasure — For some, the forest could simply serve as a pleasant place for recreation and pastime without any pretence towards the pursuit of any higher intellectual or emotional objective. John MacGregor, who like Samuel Hill had grown up on Prince Edward Island, included in the island section of his Sketches of the Maritime Colonies of British North America a description of another type of visit to the forest: Pic-n/c excursions are much in vogue all over America. . In summer some romantic spot is fixed upon, to which the party proceed. . On some grassy glade, shaded by the luxuriant branches of forest trees, and not far from a clear spring or rivulet, the contents of well-filled baskets are disclosed; feasting on which, forms certainly the most substantial part of the day’s enjoyment; but, perhaps, the most agreeable is that 8‘53 Pollard 1898.