in ?$)De arfe. 185 



The retaining part of the old forest was a desirable 

 measure, for the advance of London towards this quarter, 

 was alone restrained by the prescribed boundaries ; and 

 now the windows of her crowding houses look upon the 

 trees and grass, and the ceaseless hum of human voices, 

 which she sends forth from all her hundred gates, is heard 

 continually, with the mingled sound of rolling carriages, 

 of heavy waggons, and the trampling of horses' feet. 

 Magnificent equipages drive along the smoothly gravelled 

 roads, with which the modern park that extends around 

 the old tree is intersected. Riders on steeds, such as the 

 ancient Britons saw not, and even the polished Romans 

 could hardly have imagined, pass and repass among the 

 trees, and gaily attired pedestrians walk beneath their 

 shade. Strange contrast to what has been ! The mental 

 eye, back glancing through the vista of long ages, still 

 loves to dwell on the loneliness and the grandeur, on the 

 gloom and depth of the wide forest : it mourns over the 

 ages and the generations that have passed away, since the 

 memorial trees emerged from their cradle in the earth. 

 Some hand might inscribe on their rough bark that all 

 is vanity, that the glorious earth was not designed to be 

 thus made a charnel-house ; but, among those who pass 

 the aged trees, few would stop their progress, or their 

 discourse, to read the inscription ; and, among those who 

 read, fewer, perhaps, would desire that it should be 

 otherwise. 



