56 OUR FORESTS AND WOODLANDS 



perceyve the chapytres and contentes in the same, 

 and by reason of ofte redynge he may waxe perfyte 

 what sholde be done at all seasons. For I lerned 

 two verses at gramer scole, and those be these : 



" Gutta cavat lap'ide non vi t sed sepe cadendo ; 

 Sic homo sit sapiens non vi, sed sepe legendb" ' 



How many schoolboys since then have had 

 to learn the same old story, that the constant 

 dropping of water weareth away a stone, and 

 that a man may acquire much knowledge by 

 constant reading ? 



The course of affairs with regard to the great 

 woodlands of Scotland, Ireland, and Wales can- 

 not be traced with anything like the same pre- 

 cision as in England, nor are they probably 

 anything like so interesting. According to Skene 

 (Celtic Scotland, vol. iii. p. 283), 'what had origi- 

 nally been the waste land of the tribe became 

 known as the forest, and became dissociated from 

 the cultivated land of the thanage. It either 

 formed the subject of a separate grant, or was 

 retained as a royal forest/ 



These royal forests comprised large tracts of 

 land subject to the ' Forest Laws,' which were 

 nothing like so severe as those that had been 



