Oh, how mine eyes are pleased to see
Oaks that such spreading branches bear,
Which, from old Time's nativity,
And th' envy of so many years,
Are still green, beautiful and fair
As at the world's first day they were!
Writing of the confines of the ancient forest of Sherwood, Mr. Howitt says of those sylvan delights: "The great woods have fallen under the axe, and repeated enclosures have reduced the open forests, but at the Clipstone end still remains a remnant of its ancient woodlands, unrifled except of deer—a specimen of what the whole once was, and a specimen of consummate beauty and interest. The part called Bilhaghe is a forest of oaks, and is clothed with the most impressive aspect of age that can be presented to the eye in these kingdoms. Stonehenge does not give you a feeling of greater eld, because it is not composed of a material so easily acted on by the elements. But the hand of Time has been on these woods, and has stamped them with a most imposing character. The tempests, lightnings, winds and wintry violence of a thousand years have flung their force on these trees, and there they stand, trunk after trunk, scathed, hollow, gray, gnarled, stretching out their bare, sturdy arms, or their mingled foliage and ruin, a life in death. All is gray and old. The ground is gray beneath, the trees are gray with clinging lichens—the very heather and fern that spring beneath them have a character of the past. If you turn aside and step amongst them, your feet sink in a depth of moss and dry vegetation that is the growth of ages, or rather that ages have not been able to destroy. You stand and look round, and in the height of summer all is silent: it is like the fragment of a world worn out and forsaken. These were the trees under which King John pursued the red deer six hundred years ago, these were the oaks beneath which Robin Hood led up his bold band of outlaws.... Advance up this long avenue, which the noble owner of the forest tract has cut through it, and, looking right and left as you proceed, you will not be able long to refrain from turning into the tempting openings that present themselves. Enter which you please, you cannot be wrong. These winding tracks, just wide enough for a couple of people on horseback or in a pony phaeton, carpeted with a mossy turf which springs under your feet with a delicious elasticity, and closed in with shadowy trunks and flowery thickets—are they not lovely?"
In the time of Elizabeth the largest park in Warwickshire, and one of the very finest in England, was that which surrounded the castle rendered classic ground by the immortal limning of Scott—Kenilworth. In a survey taken in the time of James I. it is stated that "the circuit of the castle mannours, parks and chase lying round together contain at least nineteen or twenty miles in a pleasant country, the like both for strength, state and pleasure not being within the realme of England." Kenilworth came to an end in Cromwell's time, a period very unfavorable to these sylvan paradises. He had the park cut up and divided amongst various grantees. How much damage was done to the park interest by the civil wars the following extract from the Life of Margaret, duchess of Newcastle, attests: "Of eight parks which my lord had before the wars, there was but one left that was not quite destroyed—viz. Welbeck Park of about four miles compass; for my lord's brother, Sir Charles Cavendish, who bought out the life of my lord in that lordship, saved most part of it from being cut down; and in Blore Park there were some few deer left. The rest of the parks were totally defaced and destroyed, both wood, pales and deer; amongst which was also Clipston Park of seven miles compass, wherein my lord had taken much delight formerly, it being rich of wood, and containing the greatest and tallest timber trees of all the woods he shad; insomuch that only the pale-row was valued at two thousand pounds. It was watered by a pleasant river that runs through it, full of fish and otters; was well stocked with deer, full of hares, and had great store of partridges, poots, pheasants, etc., besides all sorts of water-fowl; so that this park afforded all manner of sports, for hunting, hawking, coursing, fishing, etc., for which my lord esteemed it very much. And although his patience and wisdom is such that I never perceived him sad or discontented for his own losses and misfortunes, yet when he beheld the ruins of that park I observed him troubled, though he did little express it, only saying he had been in hopes it would not have been so much defaced as he found it, there being not one timber tree in it left for shelter."
The number of deer-parks in Scotland and Ireland is small. The principal park in the former is that of the duke of Buccleuch at Dalkeith Palace, near Edinburgh. At Hamilton, belonging to the duke of that ilk, are wild cattle similar to those at Chillingham.
A wonderfully picturesque Irish park is Rockingham, the Hon. L. King Harinan's, in the county Roscommon. The traveler will observe this beautiful and very extensive demesne as he goes from Boyle to Sligo. It is at the foot of the Curlew Mountains, and contains a magnificent sheet of water surrounding an island on which stands an ancient castle, still inhabitable. At Strokestown, in the same county, is a small park, where Mr. Mahon, its former owner, planted many years ago all sorts of forest trees, to see how far the deer would eat them: the only tree they entirely avoided was the beech.