VUl PREFACE. 



Since the old Forest Periods, and since old Squire 

 Forester's day even, tlie manners and the customs of 

 the nation have changed ; but the old love of sport 

 discoverable in our ancestors, and inherited more or 

 less by them from theirs, remains as a link connecting 

 past generations with the present. 



It matters not, it appears to me, whether either 

 the writer or the reader indulges himself in such 

 sports or not, he may be equally willing to recall the 

 " Olden Time," with its instances of rough and 

 ready pluck and daring, and to listen to an old song, 

 made by an aged pate, 



" Of a fine old English gentleman who had a great estate." 



Shropshire and the surrounding counties during the 

 past century had, as we all know, many old English 

 gentlemen with large estates, who kept up their 

 brave old houses at pretty liberal rates; but few 

 probably exercised the virtue of hospitality more, or 

 came nearer to the true type of the country gentle- 

 man of the period than the hearty old Willey Squire. 

 Differ as we may in our views of the chase, we must 

 admit that such amusements served to relieve the 

 monotony of country life, and to make time pass 

 pleasantly, which but for horses and hounds, and the 



