WISTMAN'S WOOD. 107 



seven feet in height ; their branches, almost destitute of 

 foliage, overrun with moss, bramble, and other parasitical 

 plants, exhibit a scene of uncouth and cheerless desolation. 

 The circumference of some of these hoary foresters almost 

 equals their height. 



' 1 looked upon the scene, both far and near, 

 More dolef nl place did never eye survey ; 



It seemed as if the spring-time came not here, 

 Or Nature here was willing to decay.' 



" A poet of far less extended fame has made the wood of 

 Wistman the subject of his song : 



1 Sole relics of the wreath that crown'd the moor ! 

 A thousand tempests (bravely though withstood, 

 Whilst, sheltered in your caves, the wolf 's dire brood 

 Scared the wild echoes with their hideous roar), 

 Have bent your aged heads, now scath'd and hoar, 

 And in Dart's wizard stream your leaves have strew'd, 

 Since Druid priests your sacred rocks imbrued 

 With victims offer'd to their gods of gore. 

 In lonely grandeur, your firm looks recall 

 What history teaches from her classic page ; 

 How Rome's proud senate on the hordes of Gaul 

 Indignant frown'd, and stay'd their brutal rage. 

 Yet time's rude hand shall speed like theirs your fall, 

 That self -same hand so long that spared your age.' " 



A writer in the Journal of Forestry (vol. v., p. 421) tells : 

 " The trees are all dwarfs, apparently of the same age, and 

 growing on a singularly unfavourable site. Those who 

 have seen these oaks, and are aware that the wood was 

 described in a perambulation of the moor, dated soon after 

 the Conquest, as having then been in much the same state 

 as it is now, will find no difficulty in believing them to 

 be at least 2,000 years old. They owe their preservation 

 to an effectual defence, in the shape of a number of large 

 stones which cover the site on which they grow, and amid 

 which the venerable dwarfs lift their branches. The 

 trunks of the trees are about the height of a common 

 stool, such as clerks sit upon, and I sat down on the crown 

 of one in passing, and leaned upon the main limbs. The 



