THE WREKIN EOREST. 55 



The Foresters of Sutton and Bridgnortli — Anthony Foster 

 altogether a different Character from what Sir "Walter Scott 

 represents him. 



*' I am clad in youthful green, I other colours scorn, 

 My silken bauldrick bears my bugle or my horn, 

 Which, setting to my lips, I wind so loud and shrill, 

 As makes the echoes shout from every neighbouring hill ; 

 My dog-hook at my belt, to which my thong is tied, 

 My sheaf of arrows by, my wood-knife by my side, 

 My cross-bow in my hand, my gaffle on my rack, 

 To bend it when I please, or if T list to slack ; 

 My hound then in my thong, I, by the woodman's art. 

 Forecast where I may lodge the goodly hie-palm'd harfc. 

 To \'iew the grazing herds, so sundry times I use, 

 AVhere by the loftiest head I knew my deer to choose ; 

 And to unherd him, then I gallop o'er the ground, 

 Upon my well-breathed nag, to cheer my learning hound. 

 Some time I pitch my toils the deer alive to take, 

 Some time I like the cry the deep-mouthed kennel make ; 

 Then underneath my horse I stalk my game to strike. 

 And with a single dog to hunt or hurt him as I like." 



Drayton. 



It is important, to tlie completion of our sketcli of 

 tlie earlier features of the country, that we cross the 

 Severn and say a word or two respecting the forest 

 of the Wrekin, of which the early ancestors of the 

 present Willey family had charge. This famous 

 hill must then have formed a feature quite as con- 

 spicuous in the landscape as it does at present. As 

 it stood out above the wide-spreading forest that 



