CHAP, vi SYLVA 143 



of wild beasts ; there having besides this prince been 

 two more who met with their death in New-Forest. 

 There were in Yorkshire alone, in the time of Henry 

 the viii th> two hundred seventy and five woods (besides 

 the parks and chases) most of them containing five 

 hundred acres: See Mr. Camden's Brit. As to what we 

 call wood-land, I know not how to distinguish forest 

 from woods, unless for its being applicable to all sorts 

 in common ; for heretofore (which as Strabo tells us) 

 the ancient inhabitants of this island's security, was 

 their woods instead of cities and towns, as still they 

 are among the people of the uncultivated America : 

 Nor doubtless was our superb, and stately metropolis 

 (the ancient Trinovant) any other ; from whence 

 some derive its name, turning den only into don ; 

 whilst since our own remembrance, the whole city 

 was (till the late dreadful conflagration) a wooden 

 city, almost entirely built of wood and timber. 



Wood-land in Warwickshire (says the same learned 

 antiquary) was anciently call'd Ardena^ importing 

 the same in British, and still retaining the same, in 

 what is left of that vast forest, the Ardenner-Wald 

 in the Nether Germany, which stretching thro' the 

 Galedonium of Luxemburg to the confines of Cham- 

 pagn, for more than an hundred miles in length, was 

 no more than such as might compass a wood-land ; 

 from whence our own Danica Silva (the Forest of 

 Deane) might probably derive its name contracted, 

 and Diana Nemorensis found under the British Ar- 

 duena and Arden : But dismissing these conjectures, 

 we now come to the subject of this Chapter, as it 

 more immediately concerns our Common Law, (and 

 some of other nations) which we shall deduce in this 

 order. 



