less marvellous discoveries of hidden crimes, which no thickets can cover. Kenulph, king of the Mercians, left the care of Kenelme, his infant son, to his daughter Quendred, who was own sister to Kenelme. The faithless unnatural daughter conspired with Askebert, governor and tutor to the young king, to procure him to be murdered, that she might obtain the crown. Askebert, accordingly, under the pretence of hunting, carries the young king into a forest, where there is a private valley between two hills in a wood, and there traitorously kills him, and buries him secretly. The murder was for some time unknown, until a dove brought a parchment and dropped it at the high altar in St. Peter's church at Rome, wherein the whole account of the murder was set down in golden letters in the English language. This writing could not be understood by the Italians, nor by any of the men of divers nations present; a holy man who had sojourned some time in England, and been kindly received for a great space of time at the court of the late king of the Mercians, and best knew of that people and language, having just left the city. At last, an Englishman is found, who interprets the whole, and the pope soon acquaints the princes of England of the miracle.

Great multitudes of people were present at the taking up in the wood of the body of the infant king, who was, on account of the miracle, added to the number of martyrs, and soon after canonized as a saint.

The wicked queen stood looking out of her window when the body was brought in. She could not believe in its discovery, so concealed was the spot, in the gloomiest depths of the forest. But when she saw it, however bad the taste, we must follow the Romish legend,—her eyeballs dropped out of her head-the daïs was besmeared with her blood.

Under the grey rocks and ancient oaks of Bradgate, the lovely victim of family ambition, the accomplished lady Jane Grey, delighted to wander, charmed with the softened forest scenery of Charnwood. Charnwood, in which so dense was the wood, so continuous the timber, that it was said a squirrel might be hunted for six miles without ever touching the ground. And who shall say this was exaggerated, when the forest was ten or twelve

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miles in length, and six or eight in breadth? But all ladies have not the same sylvan taste. The wife of the last earl of Suffolk, who inhabited Bradgate Hall, soon after her lord brought her to his seat, received a letter from her sister, desiring to know how she liked her habitation, and the sort of country she was in? The countess of Suffolk wrote for answer, that the house was tolerable, but the country was a forest, and the inhabitants all brutes, fit denizens for a forest. The sister in reply, by letter, desired her, rather than be buried in the woods, to set fire to the house, and run away by the light of it. This notable plan the countess put in practice, and the celebrated and interesting mansion of Bradgate Hall, the abode of Jane Grey, was consigned to the flames.

The Court of Justice Seat had jurisdiction to determine, besides all trespasses committed within the forest, all claims of franchises, privileges, and liberties, within the same: as, for example, a claim to have parks within the forest; or to have the herbage and pannage of the same; or to cut down timber within the forest within their own woods, without the view of the forester: or to take housebote and haybote. Again, agistment for cattle and kine to be kept yearly, twenty or thirty of each sort. The officers, of course, had large perquisites, such as of killing eighty bucks and twenty does yearly, and the advantage and pleasure of taking pheasants, partridges, and other birds of warren.

The claims of exemption are instructive. Such are, to be quit, de misericordia, of all forest amerciaments and fines; de scoto seu shoto, of all contributions to bear expenses; de shot-ale, a provision of drink for the thirsty foresters, which was then called potura, or in the vernacular, fillen-ale; and when afterwards a great abuse arose, and refreshment was exacted for their servants, horses, and dogs, as well as themselves, it was called putura. In Spelman's Glossary, three examples are furnished of Edward I's time, under this head putura: when 1d. was paid; next, the charge was 2d.; and then it was a grave complaint that 3d. was extorted by a lord for his huntsman's putura.

By the charter of the forest, all commonable rights were expressly saved; and, happily, the poor enjoyed the

advantages therefrom arising. Thus they had their fern harvests, their pickings of gorse, brush and firewood, turf and peat; and some had pasture for a wretched horse or stunted cow, or for their asses, or for a few forest sheep, which ran in the forest wastes, upon what they, amid the fantastic tricks of so many royal and princely sportsmen, called, with a touching reference to the God of all, their "Maker's manor"; from which the poor were not excluded.

Henry I. gave the tythes of all venison within the forest of Dean to the abbey of Gloucester. Three things are observable of this period:-1, the early use of marl in agriculture; 2, the love and prudent care of the abbots and priors for the securing of forest venison, which was in the best possible taste;-for the knowing in all ages, as in Virgil's feast

"Implentur veteris Bacchi, pinguisque ferina";

-take care that the wine is old and the venison fat; 3, the attention paid to the collection and preservation of honey, when there was no sugar.

Are we archæologists mere dreamers of the past? and have our speculations and conclusions no practical application to the present time? Let us see. The old forest laws may be considered as having been virtually abolished, and the offices connected with their administration and execution, are turned, in this country, into complete sinecures. But forests have still their vast use and value; for the picturesque embellishment of the country, for the growth of timber, and the supply of fuel and wood, for services and repairs, besides contributing to a thousand arts now necessary to our comfort. This consideration has awakened many prudent governments to the necessity of protecting forests from wanton spoliation by codes enacted for the purpose, and of forming schools, in which all that is necessary to be known for the management of forests, so as to maintain a constant supply of timber and fuel, shall be regularly taught. Hence, FOREST SCIENCE now constitutes a separate and distinct branch of education, which originated in Germany, at Isenberg, near the Hartz Forest; and throughout that country forest academies soon multiplied. Prussia directed particular attention to the subject: a new organization took place, and competent

instruction in all things appertaining to the management of forests, became a necessary qualification for an appointment to any post in the forest department. In the forest academies are taught botany, vegetable physiology, mineralogy, zoology, chemistry, mensuration, draining, and embanking. The examination which the candidates undergo is very strict, and the result of the system is said to have been eminently beneficial. France has a distinct forest administration, and an extended code. Russia is doing likewise. Might it not be advisable to pay some attention to the same subject in this country, to provide for the better preservation of our remaining forests, and to promote more general instruction in forest science? Forest beauty, through all its sylvan haunts,-the grove, the dell, the thicket, and the glade,-as suited to their tastes and congenial with their habits, Englishmen are certain to appreciate; nor are they likely to forget them, as commemorated in the undying strains of the swan of Twickenham :—

Here, waving groves a chequer'd scene display,
And part admit, and part exclude the day;

There, interspers'd in lawns and opening glades,
Thin trees arise, that shun each other's shades.
Here, in full light, the russet plains extend;
There, wrapt in clouds, the blueish hills ascend.
E'en the wild heath displays her purple dyes,
And, 'midst the desert, fruitful fields arise.

Thou too, great father of the British floods!

With joyful pride, survey'st our lofty woods."

Concluding with the remarkable now-accomplished prediction :

"The time shall come, when free as seas or wind,
Unbounded Thames shall flow for all mankind;
Whole nations enter, with each swelling tide,

And seas but join the regions they divide."

POPE'S Windsor Forest.

ON EARLY BURIAL-PLACES DISCOVERED IN THE COUNTY OF NOTTINGHAM.

BY THOMAS BATEMAN, ESQ.

It does not appear that the ante-Roman monuments of Nottinghamshire, which was one of the counties anciently inhabited by the Coritani, have ever excited much attention amongst either topographical or antiquarian writers: hence the materials for drawing up a paper on the sepulchral remains of the early inhabitants are both few in number and meagre in quality.

With the exception of major Hayman Rooke, a gentleman who resided at Mansfield Wood House at the close of the last century, I am unacquainted with the name of any individual whose researches amongst the primeval antiquities of this county have been of a practical and available character; and it is from his private correspondence and published dissertations that many of the facts made use of in this paper have been derived,—so much are we indebted to the well-directed efforts of the older archæologists, and to the interesting facts perpetuated by them, although their own deductions were not unfrequently erroneous. This, however, was a consequence more attributable to the uncertain nature of the study, then in its infancy, than to any defect of judgment or intelligence in the men themselves, whose mistakes we should treat with lenity, remembering that they were the fathers of the science, and that we now are enabled, by the gradual accumulation of facts and observations (to which they contributed in no small degree), to discover and correct many errors to which they were unavoidably exposed, as neophites in a new and uncertain pursuit.

All honour, then, to the well-remembered names of Browne and Stukeley, Pegge and Rooke, upon whose occult and mysterious theories we once pored with no ordinary degree of wondering veneration, and which we considered it almost sacrilegious to call in question. Indeed, whether mistaken or not, these were the men who could depict the