108 AUBREY'S NATURAL HISTORY OF WILTSHIRE. 



windings of a river, fit objects for quiet innocence, than he that with fire and sword disturbs the 

 world, and measures his possessions by the wast that lies about him. 



These plaines doe abound with hares, fallow deer, partridges, and bustards. [The fallow deer and 

 bustards have long since disappeared from these plains ; but hares and partridges abound in the 

 vicinity of gentlemen's seats, particularly around Everleigh, Tidworth, Amesbury, Wilbury, Wilton, 

 Earl-Stoke, Clarendon, &c. Vide ante, p. 64. J. B.] In this tract is y Earle of Pembroke's 

 noble seat at Wilton ; but the Arcadia and the Daphne is about Vernditch and Wilton ; and these 

 romancy plaines and boscages did no doubt conduce to the hightening of Sir Philip Sydney's 

 phansie. He lived much in these parts, and his most masterly touches of his pastoralls he wrote 

 here upon the spott, where they were conceived. 'Twas about these purlieus that the muses were 

 wont to appeare to Sir Philip Sydney, and where he wrote down their dictates in his table book, 

 though on horseback.* For those nimble fugitives, except they be presently registred, fly away, 

 and perhaps can never be caught again. But they were never so kind to appeare to me, though I 

 am the usufructuary:! it seemes they reserve that grace only for the proprietors, to whom they have 

 continued a constant kindnesse for a succession of generations of the no lesse ingenious than honor- 

 able family of the Herberts. These were the places where our Kings and Queens used to divert 

 themselves in the hunting season. Cranbourn Chase, which reaches from Harnham Bridge, at 

 Salisbury, near to Blandford, was belonging to Roger Mortimer, Earle of March : his seate was at 

 liis castle at Cranboume. If these oakes here were vocall as Dodona's, some of the old dotards (old 

 stagge-headed oakes, so called) could give us an account of the amours and secret whispers between 

 tliis great Earle and the f'aire Queen Isabell. 



To find the proportion of the downes of this countrey to the vales, I did divide Speed's Mappe of 

 Wiltshire with a paire of cizars, according to the respective hundreds of downes and vale, and I 

 weighed them in a curious ballance of a goldsmith, and the proportion of the hill countrey to the 

 vale is as . . . . to . . . . sc. about fere. 



SHEEP. As to the nature of our Wiltshire sheep, negatively, they are not subject to the shaking ; 

 which the Dorsetshire sheep are. Our sheep about Chalke doe never die of the rott. My Cos. 

 Scott does assure me that I may modestly allow a thousand sheep to a tything, one with another. 

 Mr. Rogers was for allowing of two thousand sheep, one with another, to a tything, but my Cosin 

 Scott saies that is too high. 



SHEPHERDS. The Britons received then- knowledge of agriculture from the Romans, and they 

 retain yet many of then- customes. The festivalls at sheep-shearing seeme to bee derived from the 

 Parilia. In our western parts, I know not what is donn in the north, the sheep-masters give no 

 wages to their shepherds, but they have the keeping of so many sheep, pro rata ; soe that the 

 shepherds' lambs doe never miscarry. I find that Plautus gives us a hint of this custome amongst 

 the Romans in his time ; Asinaria, Act III. scene L Philenian (Meretrix) : 



" Etiam opilio, qui pascit (mater) alienas ovis, 

 Aliquam habet peculiarem qua spem aoletur suam." 



Their habit, I believe, (let there be a draught of their habit) is that of the Roman or Arcadian 

 shepherds ; as they are delineated in Mr. Mich. Drayton's Poly-olbion ; sc. a long white cloake with 



* I remember some old relations of mine and [other] old men hereabout that have seen Sir Philip doe thus. 

 f [Aubrey held the manor form of Broad Chalk under a lease from the Earl of Pembroke. J. B.] 



