AYLES HOLT. 37 



The lady of General Howe lived to an advanced 

 age, long surviving her husband ; and, at her death, 

 left behind her many curious pieces of mechanism of 

 her father's constructing, who was a distinguished 

 mechanic and artist,* as well as warrior ; and, among 

 the rest, a very complicated clock, lately in posses- 

 sion of Mr. Elmer, the celebrated game painter at 

 Farnham, in the county of Surrey. 



Though these two forests are only parted by a 

 narrow range of enclosures, yet no two soils can be 

 more different; for the Holt consists of a strong 

 loam, of a miry nature, carrying a good turf, and 

 abounding with oaks that grow to be large timber ; 

 while Wolmer is nothing but a hungry, sandy, bar- 

 ren waste. 



The former, being all in the parish of Binsted, is 

 about two miles in extent from north to south, and 

 near as much from east to west, and contains within 

 it many woodlands and lawns, and the Great Lodge 

 where the grantees reside, and a smaller lodge called 

 Goose Green ; and is abutted on by the parishes of 

 Kingsley, Frinsham, Farnham, and Bentley, all of 

 which have right of common. 



One thing is remarkable, that, though the Holt 

 has been of old well stocked with fallow-deer, unre- 

 strained by any pales or fences more than a common 

 hedge, yet they were never seen within the limits of 

 Wolmer; nor were the red- deer of Wolmer ever 

 known to haunt the thickets or glades of the Holt. 



At present the deer of the Holt are much thinned 

 and reduced by the night-hunters, who perpetually 



* This prince was the inventor of mezzotinto. 



NOTE. The invention of mezzotinto is generally attributed 

 to Prince Rupert ; but it is also by some assigned to Lieutenant- 

 Colonel Siegend, an officer in the service of the Landgrave of 

 Hesse, so early as the year 1643, from whom the Prince derived 

 the secret. W. J. 



