SOME REMARKS ON BRITISH FOREST HISTORY. 185 



destruction of woods upon the maker of sheep-walks and the 

 prodigal — " I have known a well-burnished gentleman that hath 

 borne threescore at once in one pair of galigascons to shew his 

 strength and bravery." ^ Under the Commonwealth the guilt 

 was laid on the shoulders of Popish politicians.- At the 

 Restoration Evelyn gravely attributed the diminution of wood- 

 lands to " such as lately professing themselves against root and 

 branch (either to be reimboursed of their holy purchases, or for 

 some other sordid respect), were tempted not only to fell and 

 cut down, but utterly to grub up, demolish and raze, as it were, 

 all those many goodly woods and forests, which our more 

 prudent ancestors left standing."^ Harrison and Evelyn were 

 as blind to the truth and to economic causes as the playwright 

 who held up to execration, along with engrossers, inclosers 

 of commons, usurers and fraudulent tradesmen — 



" Builders of iron mills, that grub up forests 

 With timber trees for shipping."^ 



They saw, they magnified, the evils : their principal remedy 

 was to stop the clock, although in saying this we must make 

 partial exceptions of both Harrison and Evelyn. 



Harrison foresaw that coal must take the place of wood 

 as fuel, and urged that smiths in Sussex and Hampshire should 

 use it instead of charcoal : he recognised that the cost of carriage 

 was against the change and considered it "but a slender 

 excuse."' His remedy, which he thought it hopeless to expect 

 to be put into practice, was to require every owner of forty acres 

 of "the champaign soil" to plant one acre of wood." Since 

 Harrison's recommendations passed into general circulation with 

 Holinshed's Chronicles, it is not surprising that when a king 

 came to the throne who was reputed to take a keen interest in 



^ Op. cit., p. 202. 



^Taylor, Common- Good {16^2), p. 33: "the late decay [of timber] our 

 enemies did rejoyce in, as some can well remember, when those notable 

 Popish Politicians (Sir John Winter, Sir Bazill Brooks, and Mr Minn, Rome's 

 Agents) had designed the destruction of those goodly woods in the Forrest of 

 Dean, and truly our friends cannot take any great joy in the great wast that 

 hath been made since." 



=* Syha (1664), pp. I, 2. 



^ Massinger, The Guardian (1633), Act ii. Sc. iv ; Mermaid edition, 

 ii. 184. 



^ Op. tit., p. 145. 



* Ibid., p. 202-3. 



VOL. XXXVI. PART II. N 



