FIRST YEARS OF SUCCESS. 125 



if only for the sake of the ' days when we went 

 gipsying a long time ago' spare them for 

 the children to gather the flowers of May and 

 the blackberries of September. When the 

 orange spot glows upon the beech, then the 

 nuts are ripe, and the hawthorn -bushes are 

 hung with festoons of the buff- coloured, heart- 

 shaped leaves of a once-green creeper. That 

 ' deepe and enclosed country of Northe Wiltes/ 

 which old Clarendon, in his famous c Civill 

 Warre/ says the troops of King Charles had 

 so much difficulty to hurry through, is pleasant 

 to those who can linger by the wayside and 

 the copse, and do not fear to hear the ordnance 

 make the ' woods ring again/ though to this 

 day a rusty old cannon-ball may sometimes be 

 found under the dead brown leaves of Aid- 

 bourne Chase where the skirmish took place 

 before 'Newbury Battle. 7 Perhaps it is 

 because no such deadly outbursts of human 

 passions have swept along beneath its trees 

 that the ' Forest ' is unsung by the poet, and 

 unvisited by the artist. Yet its very name 

 is poetical, Savernake, i.e., savernesacre like 

 the God's acre of Longfellow. Saverne a 



