Part 4
[_You in your secret labyrinths &c._] Those scenes (forests in Somersetshire) will ever be famous in British history, while the remembrance continues of Alfred the Great. Frequent inundations of Danes and repeated losses had driven him from the management of affairs. But he retired before the enemies of his country only to attack them with more advantage. Seeing the time ripe for action he emerged from his retreat where he had been concealed, but not inactive during a twelvemonth; called his friends together in the forest of Selwood, which sheltered him and his numbers. Here arranging his followers, he burst from the forest like a torrent upon the Danes, and totally defeated them.—_Gilpin’s Forest Scenery, Hume, &c._
Footnote 47:
[_Your hush’d leaves &c._] Alfred on the night of his retirement from the Danes, it is said, had a vision of St. Cuthbert, comforting and assuring him he should be a great King.—_Camden’s Britannia._
Footnote 48:
[_You tun’d his harp, you trimm’d his bow._] He was skilful in the use of both.
Footnote 49:
[_Your proud oaks lean’d_] He provided himself with a naval power, which though the most natural defence of an island, had hitherto been totally neglected by the English.
Footnote 50:
[_Your song-birds_] He endeavoured to convey his morality to his subjects by apologues, parables, stories, and apothegms couch’d in poetry.
Footnote 51:
[_While Liberty &c._] Amidst the necessary rigor of justice this great Prince preserved the most sacred regard to the liberty of his people.
Footnote 52:
[_Lair_] The couch or harbour of a wild beast. _Milton._
Footnote 53:
[_With fresh fray’d beams &c._] As soon as the new horns (or beams) of a stag have acquired their full dimensions and solidity, he rubs them against the trees in order to clear them of a skin with which they are covered.—_Buffon._ To fray (_frayer_, _Fr._) is the hunting term for this operation.
Footnote 54:
[_On yonder castled cliff &c._] Tutbury castle, the residence of John of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster.
Footnote 55:
[_And fill’d they not &c._] The Duke of Lancaster greatly distinguished himself in a battle fought between Najara and Navarete near the Ebro in Spain in 1367. He commanded the 1st battalion of the English army.—_Johnes’s Froissart._
Footnote 56:
[_Spain’s boasted slingers &c._] The Spanish commonalty made use of slings, to which they were accustomed, & from which they threw large stones which at first much annoyed the English: but when their first cast was over, and they felt the sharpness of the English arrows, they kept no longer any order.—_Johnes’s Froissart._
Footnote 57:
[_Hark! nations hail &c._] Alluding to his prowess and fame in the Crusades.
Footnote 58:
[_The man thy Minstrels bring_,] As the subject of their historic ballads. The minstrels were much encouraged in this King’s reign.
Footnote 59:
[_As Sherwood’s Hero, &c._] The severity of those tyrannical forest-laws that were introduced by our Norman Kings, and the great temptation of breaking them by such as lived near the royal forests, must constantly have occasioned great numbers of outlaws, and especially of such as were the best marksmen. These naturally fled to the woods for shelter, and forming into troops endeavoured by their numbers to protect themselves from the dreadful penalties of their delinquency. This will easily account for the troops of banditti, which formerly lurked in the Royal forests, and from their superior skill in archery and knowledge of the recesses of those unfrequented solitudes, found it no difficult matter to resist or elude the civil power. Among those, none was ever more famous than Robin Hood, the Hero of Sherwood forest; of whom Stow’s account is briefly thus.—“In this time (about the year 1190, in the reign of Richard 1st) were many robbers and outlaws, among the which Robin Hood and Little John, renowned thieves, continued in woods despoyling and robbing the goods of the rich. They killed none but such as would invade them, or by resistance for their own defence. The saide Robert entertained an hundred tall men and good archers with such spoiles and thefts as he got, upon whom four hundred (were they ever so strong) durst not give the onset. He suffered no woman to be oppressed, violated, or otherwise molested: poor mens goods he spared abundantlie, relieving them with that, which by theft he got from Abbeys and the houses of rich Carles.” The personal courage of this celebrated outlaw, his skill in archery, his humanity, and especially his levelling principle of taking from the rich and giving to the poor, have in all ages rendered him the favourite of the common people. He was in early times the favourite subject of popular songs.—_Percy’s Reliques of antient English Poetry, 1st vol._
Footnote 60:
[_Bright brown blade, broad arrows, gown of green_,] is the language of the ballads.
Footnote 61:
[_Needwood, this brave man &c._] See in Robin Hood’s garland a ballad, (quoted in Shaw’s History of Staffordshire) giving an account of Robin Hood’s visit to Tutbury; and of his marriage there with Clorinda.________ The relation of the forest to Tutbury will probably admit of this consideration of them as one and the same.
Footnote 62:
[_King’s-standing, &c._] See Needwood Forest, page 23.
Footnote 63:
[_On the stain’d turf their wrecks are pil’d_,] Bark-ranges.
Footnote 64:
[_In smouldering heaps, &c._] Making charcoal.
Footnote 65:
[_From blacken’d brakes_,] Burning the furze-brakes.—Goss.—_Bailey’s Dictionary._
Footnote 66:
[_Yon Wretch_] Surveyor or overlooker.
Footnote 67:
[_Valley! where Marebrook, all unveil’d_,] This Valley nearly bisected the Forest in beautifully varied windings, though without trees of any kind on its sides, or on the verge of its little stream, Marebrook, the course of which was remarkably flexuous; but is now actually turned down the straight fence-ditch.
Footnote 68:
[_And knights and dames, and dwarfs portray’d, &c._] Needwood Forest, p. 16.
Footnote 69:
[_But for the bee bird’s gaudy plume, &c._] See Needwood Forest, p. 16.
Footnote 70:
[_Manuel._] The Forest earth-stopper in the hunting days of the author.
Footnote 71:
[_You fox-gloves, &c._] _See_ _Digitalis—Loves of the plants, p. 78._
“The effect of this plant (the fresh leaves of which may be had at all seasons of the year) in that kind of Dropsy which is termed anasarca is truly astonishing.”
Footnote 72:
[_Lyre and shield._] As the God of Medicine, giving health and safety, Apollo is sometimes described with a shield, as well as a lyre.
Footnote 73:
[_Again to save &c._] See Needwood Forest, p. 43.
Footnote 74:
[_And many a noble heart &c._] Alluding to the opposition to the Inclosure.
Footnote 75:
[_Yet Limbrook, &c._] This rivulet rises on the late Forest and takes its course through an extensive valley on the brow of which stands Byrkley Lodge, and proceeds downwards by Yoxall Lodge: some beautiful Forest scenes have been added to the old Inclosures of these Lodges, where are shrubberies and sheets of water.
Footnote 76:
[_And ever, in thy favour’d bound_,] Applying the whole scenery around these lodges to Limbrook.
Footnote 77:
[_When stoops the stranger ewe to drink_;] Sheep were not depastur’d on the Forest.
Footnote 78:
[_The tracks of their remember’d deer_,] It is said that the Wolf-tracks may yet be seen in some parts which those animals frequented, in Ireland, centuries ago.
Footnote 79:
[_Monster of the world_] French Revolution.
Footnote 80:
[_Emma’s art_] Miss Emma Sneyd, of Byrkley Lodge, has produced some beautiful landscapes and drawings of the Forest scenes.
Footnote 81:
[“_Here Gisborne penn’d his moral lay_] The character and writings both in verse and prose of the Rev. Thomas Gisborne, of Yoxall Lodge, are equally well known and admired: the public has lately called for a seventh edition of his “Walks in a Forest.”
Footnote 82:
[_Gigantic hollies!_] Particular groups of hollies of great age and size are here alluded to, as in _Needwood Forest p. 19_. Having been lopped for the deer in winter, (the upper part of their remaining trunks and branches being again cloathed with their fresh ever-green shoots) they had somewhat the appearance of ruins.
Footnote 83:
[_Fair Virgin!_] The Hon. Catharine Venables Vernon died in the summer of 1775.
Footnote 84:
[_Hark the same bell!—take, sister bier_,] The Hon. Martha Venables Vernon died while the Author was writing this poem.
Footnote 85:
[_Yes, Holly-Bush!_] Formerly the residence of the Author, where many alterations have since been made and are making.
Footnote 86:
[_Inland look_;] In contradistinction to its former forest character, in which sense this word is repeatedly used by Shakespear in “As you like it,” though there applied to persons.
Footnote 87:
[_Unambitious brow &c._] Needwood Forest p. 8.——[_Favourite Tree Sycamore_;] Needwood Forest p. 10.
Footnote 88:
[_Hall, whose kind arm &c._] T. K. Hall, Esq. has purchased Holly Bush with a considerable portion of the adjacent Forest land, the scenery of which he intends to preserve.
Footnote 89:
[_Revered Swilcar_;] Needwood Forest p. 41, 42. &c.
Footnote 90:
[_Horrid!—I see thee far!_] The present appearance of Swilcar oak over a broad and hitherto uncultivated part of the late Forest, where not another tree remains, is very striking. He is fenced off from a new road.
Footnote 91:
[_And some, with strength &c._] Alluding to the complimentary verses printed with Needwood Forest, and others afterwards sent to the author.
Footnote 92:
[_Yon prison’d cliffs_] The banks and cliffs of the Forest, hanging towards the river Dove, are now fenced in, though otherwise left in their former state.
Footnote 93:
Milton, in Comus, makes Naiades the plural of Naiad, “amid the flowery-kirtled Naiades.”
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. ● Used numbers for footnotes, placing them all at the end of the last chapter. ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. ● Enclosed blackletter font in =equals=.