ROYAL CHASE OF SHIRLOT. 45 



landowners set themselves to work to remedy tlie 

 evil by planting and preserving trees, especially tlie 

 oak ; and many of tlie woods and plantations wkich 

 gladden tlie eye of tlie traveller in passing through 

 the country, and which afford good sport to the 

 Wheatland and Albrighton packs, were the result. 



To this indigenous and deep-rooted love of sport 

 we are therefore indebted, to a very great extent, 

 for those beautiful woods which adorn the Willey 

 country and many other . portions of the kingdom. 

 But for our woods and the "creeping things" 

 they shelter, we should have imperfect conceptions 

 of those earlier phases of the island : — 



" When stalked the bison from his shaggy lair, 

 Thousands of years "before the silent air 

 "Was pierced by whizzing shafts of hunters keen." 



The country would have been wanting in subjects 

 such as Creswick, with faithful expressions of foliage 

 and knowledge of the play of light and shade, has 

 depicted. It would have lost the text-work of 

 those characteristics Constable revelled in, and 

 those Harding gave us in his oaks. We should 

 have lost subjects for the poet as well as for the 

 painter ; for the ballad literature of the countrj?- is 

 redolent of sights and sounds associated therewith. 



