in the forest vista, the trees are casually large or small; growing in clumps, or standing single; crowding upon the fore ground, or receding from it; as the wild hand of Nature hath scattered them. And it is curious to see with what richness of invention, if I may so speak, Nature mixes and intermixes her trees; and shapes them into such a wonderful variety of groups and beautiful forms. Art may admire, and attempt to plant and form combinations like hers: but whoever examines the wild combinations of a forest, (which is a delightful study to a picturesque eye,) has little taste, if he do not acknowledge with astonishment the superiority of Nature's workmanship. 66 Besides, these grand vistas are not only varied with such smaller openings and recesses, as are formed by the irregular growth of trees; they are broken also by lawns, and tracts of pasturage, which often shoot athwart them. One of this kind, and a very beautiful one, occurs at the sixth stone; and another, though of inferior size and beauty, at the seventh. "Added to this intermixture of lawn and wood, the rising and falling of the ground, in various parts of this vista, produce another species of variety. The elevation is no where considerable; but it is sufficient to occasion breaks in the convergency of the great perspective lines. It creates also new beauties in the scenery; particularly in some parts, where you look down from the road, among trees retiring, and sinking from the eye, till the stems of the most distant are lost in the deep shadows of the descending recesses. "All these circumstances give the forest vista a very different air from the artificial one, diversifying the parts, of which it is composed, so much, that the eye is never fatigued with surveying them; while the whole together presents one vast, sublime object. Like a grand gallery of exquisite pictures, it fills the eye with all its greatness; while the objects, on each side, continually changing, afford at every step a new entertainment. "I should add, before I leave this pleasing vista, that, to see it in perfection, a strong sunshine is necessary. It will rarely happen, but that one side or the other will be seen in shadow; and this circumstance alone will produce contrasts, which will be highly agreeable.-I may add, also, that this vista appears to much greater advantage as we rise through it to Lyndhurst, than as we descend to Brockenhurst.” The felled trees lying on the ground, and the numerous stumps that mark the continual ravages of the axe, excite unavailing regret for the perishing grandeur of these scenes, and on account of the tardy and hitherto unavailing measures that have been used to produce a future supply. -In 1747, when Gilpin's Forest Scenery, vol. ii. p. 64-70.Mrs. Montague visited the forest, she remarks-"The forest was new to me, and I was struck with a kind of awe at it. We are apt to respect even inanimate things to which time seems to have shown a reverence. I could not help thinking the aged oak must look on generations of mortals as we do on people at a masquerade, who assume and lay by their character before they have time to learn their part.". -A similar thought is finely expressed by Cowper; Oh, could ye speak, As in Dodona once your kindred trees Oracular, I would not curious ask The future, best unknown, but at your mouth, In advancing, on the right, almost concealed, by woods, are seen the fences of NEW PARK, a spacious enclosure, four miles in circumference. It was first used to secure stray cattle, forfeited to the lord warden of New Forest; but, in the year 1670, Charles II. set it apart for the reception of a particular herd of red deer, which he had procured from France. It was afterwards let by lease to an individual; but it is at present used as a farm to supply hay for the deer. Beech timber is very prevalent in this part of the forest. It has probably been less frequently cut than the oak and, where oak and beech are mixed, it is said that the latter will in time prevail. About the sixth stone, the village of BROCKENHURST comes into the prospect, with the mansion on the left, embowered in noble woods. Still further to the left, is just discerned the roof of WATCOMBE HOUSE, retiring from notice like the eminently good man who once inhabited it; and who, while his steady efforts to diminish the mass of human misery, made him the admiration of the civilized world, yet shrunk from that notice with which his contemporaries were eager to distinguish him. John Howard was once a tenant of this humble mansion. He settled here soon after his second marriage, in 1759. During his three years' residence at Brockenhurst, his bounty and amiable disposition so endeared him to his poor neighbours, that he is still remembered with grateful veneration. Shortly after quitting this village, he entered upon those plans of extensive benevolence which have ranked him high among the names that Britain is proud to own-plans, in the execution of which, (to adopt the just and animated eulogy of Mr. Burke,) "he visited all Europe, and the East, not to survey the sumptuousness of palaces, or the stateliness of temples; not to make accurate measurements of the remains of ancient grandeur, nor to form a scale of the curiosity of modern art; not to collect medals, nor to collate manuscripts ;-but to dive into the depth of dungeons; to plunge into the infection of hospitals; to survey the mansions of sorrow and of pain; to take the gauge and dimensions of misery, depression, and contempt; to remember the forgotten; to attend to the neglected; to visit the forsaken; and to compare and collate the distresses of all men in all countries. His plan was original; and it was as full of genius as it was of huma nity. It was a voyage of discovery,-a circumnavigation of charity; and already the benefit of his labour is felt more or less in every country." A small stream which here crosses the road, and which, under the name of Boldre Water, collects other rivulets in its course, till it reaches the sea at Lymington, needs only a little plantation on its banks, to render it highly beautiful. It is worth the while to digress from the road for half an hour, at Brockenhurst, through a beautiful lane on the left, as far as the parish-church. This is an ancient structure, on an eminence adjoining the grounds of the manor-house, and is probably the very building mentioned in Domesday-book, though with a modern tower and other In many of the accounts of this excellent man, which have been laid before the public, the religious principles, whence his benevo lence proceeded, have been too little noticed. This deficiency has at length been amply supplied in the elaborate quarto volume of Memoirs lately published by Mr. Brown. additions. Two venerable neighbours, at the entrance of the church-yard, deserve notice,-a noble oak, twenty-five feet in girth; and a stately yew, fifteen feet in girth, and upwards of sixty feet high. The church-yard, though high, is so shaded with beautiful and venerable trees, as to possess all the seclusion that is congenial with the solemn repose of death and the tombstones, instead of disgusting the visitant with inconsistent and absurd ideas, are most happily inscribed with passages well adapted to the sober mood of contemplation. One of them is that fine passage in the apocryphal book of Wisdom: "The souls of the righteous ̊ are in the hand of God, and there shall no torment touch them. In the sight of the unwise, they seemed to die, and their departure is taken for misery: but they are in peace." Another passage from the sublimely poetical book of Job, harmonizes with the same solemn ideas. "So man lieth down, and riseth not till the heavens be no more they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep." A simple stanza, which pretends to none of the higher graces of poetry, is yet pathetic and affecting, from the strict propriety with which its emblems accord with the surrounding woodland scenery, over which large masses of shade sweep in succession, and from the turf which covers the graves : "The days wherein I pass'd my life, Were like the fleeting shade: That soon away doth fade." |