306 MAN AND NATURE. 



As we have so often had occasion to cite England 

 in illustration of the various subjects of this article, 

 we are tempted to conclude it by some slight sketch 

 of the contrast this island presents in its actual state 

 with its condition as we have it pictured to us at 

 different periods since the Conquest. For a mere out- 

 line the materials must be taken thus generally ; but it 

 would well repay a special labour to fill up the picture 

 as far as possible for particular intervening periods, 

 bringing them severally into this comparison. 



Sir Francis Palgrave, in the concluding volume of 

 his Norman History, has described the condition of 

 England under the last of her Saxon Kings with some- 

 thing of that ingenuity and power which shine so 

 conspicuously in Lord Macaulay's celebrated chapter 

 on the state of the country in the seventeenth century. 

 At the time of the Conquest, and during the reigns of 

 the early Norman kings, little less than one-third of 

 England was covered with woods, and a still larger 

 part showed a surface only of heath, mountain-moors, 

 marshes, and sea-fens. The small part left for arable 

 uses and pasture sufficed nevertheless for the scanty 

 population of the country, which at that period was 

 probably less than three millions for the whole island. 

 The old English forests are numerously perpetuated by 

 name, even where they no longer exist as such. They 

 were at that time, as we have stated, tenanted by the 

 wild boar, by bears and wolves. The tribute paid to 

 the king in wolves' heads did not prevent the ravages 

 of this animal even near to London, and in remoter 

 parts many centuries later. The beaver then built his 



