Richard is said by some to have been killed by a stag in the New Forest, by others to have been crushed against a tree by his horse.
[39] This verse is taken from one of Denham's in his translation of the Second Æneis:
At once the taker, and at once the prey.—Wakefield.
[40] The oak under which Rufus was shot, was standing till within these few years.—Bowles.
A stone pillar now marks the spot.—Croker.
[41] In the New Forest, where the cottages had been swept away by William. "Succeeding monarchs" did not, as Pope implies, suffer encroachments on the forest out of pity for their subjects. The concession was extorted. Some of the provisions of Magna Charta were directed against the increase of the royal forests and against the "evil customs" maintained with respect to them.
[42] Mountains hitherto unknown to the flocks, who were now for the first time permitted to feed there.
Miraturque novas frondes et non sua poma. Virg.—Warburton.
Virgil is treating of grafts, and says that the parent stock, when the slips grow, wonders at leaves and fruit not its own. Here the imagination keeps pace with the description, but stops short before the notion that the trees in the forest wondered to behold the crops of corn.