Marclies was held, and were benighted in this forest. Henry Lawes, the Court 

 musician, thinkiug what an admirahle masc^ue their adventures would make, 

 IjrevaUed on his friend John Milton to write the verse while he (Lawes) wrote 

 the music. On Michaelmas night, 1634, this masque, embracing in the cast many 

 of the actual characters, was presented to the world in the banqueting hall of 

 Ludlow Castle. If any of you should like to come with me through the woods, 

 you need not fear similar adventures, as, like Comus, 



I know each lane, and every alley green, 

 Dingle or bushy dell of this wild wood, 

 And every bosky bourn from side to side, 

 My daily walks and ancient neighbourhood. 



While the mental food was being discussed, Mr. Broadwood's servants 

 were preparing the tent for the bodily refreshment of the club, and had the 

 addresses been of the driest (which they were not) the cooling diinks which 

 Mr. Broadwood's hospitality caused to be circulated would have done much to 

 facilitate their acceptance. At the jjicnic lunch it was hard to say what were 

 the products of Individual baskets, and what the cantriljutions of the kindly 

 host of the day. Vegetables, fruit, ice, seltzer water, lemonade, gingerade, 

 sherry, brandy, and divers others adjuncts to a repast were certainly provided 

 by the latter, as well as the whole apparatus of knives, forks, plates and dishes, 

 and glass, those necessaries which it is so difficult to carry in baskets, and 

 which, when carried, usually fall so short, and have so often to serve a double 

 and a treble purpose. It is only due to Mr. Broadwood to say that he had 

 offered to undertake the whole entertainment of the club, but the President, 

 feeling that the numbers might be unusually large, owing to the attractions 

 of the district and the circumstances of the meeting, had recommended the 

 modified, but still very handsome and helpful form, which his hospitality took. 



After lunch a vote of thanks was proposed by the President to Mr. Broad- 

 wood, and seconded by Mr. Swinburne, which Mr. Broadwood briefly 

 acknowledged. Whilst the able-footed pedestrians proceeded after lunch to 

 the High Vinnals, now like the Haye Park Woods enclosed and planted by 

 their owner, Mr. Andrew Boughton Knight (whose permission to traverse his 

 territory in any parts of it was duly acknowledged bj' the President at the dose 

 of the lunch), the ladies adjourned to the Haye Park Houee and adjacent 

 grounds, and the committee of the club proceeded to transact the cm-rent busi- 

 ness of the day. 



A letter was read from the Piev. P.. H. Williams, suggesting that prizes 

 should be offered by the Club for a collection of dried plants, and another for 

 a collection of insects, made in the course of each year, in any one parish of 

 those connected with the Club, such collections to be sent in to the secretary 

 before the 15th of December. 



