A FOREST. 11 



various times dug up by the road-sides several skeletons 

 of human beings, and of horses ; they were in general 

 but slightly covered with earth ; and though the bones 

 were much decayed, yet the teeth were sound, and ap- 

 peared most commonly to have belonged to young per- 

 sons, and probably had been deposited in their present 

 situations at no very distant period of time. With the 

 bones of a horse so found there remained the iron head 

 of a lance, about a foot long, corroded, but not greatly 

 decayed. Unable better to account for these skeletons, 

 we suppose that they constituted, when alive, part of 

 the forces of General Fairfax, and that they fell in some 

 partial encounters with the peasantry when defending 

 their property about to be plundered by the foragers of 

 his army in 1645, at the time he was besieging the cas- 

 tle of Bristol. The siege lasted sixteen or seventeen 

 days ; many parties during that time must have been 

 sent out by him to plunder us cavaliers, and contention 

 would take place. 



It is foreign to my plan to enumerate, and it might 

 be difficult to discover, all' the changes and revolutions 

 which have taken place here; and I. shall merely men- 

 tion, that this district formerly constituted a regal forest, 

 and we find Robert Fitzharding holding it by grant in 

 the time of King John. We have a " lodge farm," it is 

 true, and the adjoining grange, the "conygar," i. e. 

 coneygard, the rabbit-keeper's dwelling, may, perhaps, 

 have been the situation of the sylvan warren ; but there 

 are no remains, or any other indications, of a forest ever 

 having been in existence. Names and traditional tales 

 are all that remain in most places now to remind us of 

 the ancient state of England, or to make credible the 

 narratives of our old historians, who lived when Britain 

 was a forest. Where shall we look for the remnants of 

 that mighty wood, filled with boars, bulls, and savage 

 beasts, that surrounded London ? Even in our own days, 

 heaths, moors, and wilds, have disappeared, so as to 

 leave no indications of their former state but the name. 

 Woods and forests seem to be the original productions 

 of most soils and countries favorable for the abode of 

 mankind, as if inviting a settlement, and offering mate- 



