26 SYLVA BR1TANNICA. 



THE MOCCAS PARK OAK 



is thirty-six feet in circumference, at three feet from 

 the ground ; it stands in the Park of Moccas Court, 

 on the banks of the Wye, in Herefordshire; the 

 seat of Sir George Amyand Cornewall, Bart., who 

 traces his ancestry from Richard, second son of 

 King John, Earl of Cornwall, and King of the Ro- 

 mans. The whole estate, from the very nature of 

 its situation, forming part of the borders between 

 England and Wales, is fraught with historical asso- 

 ciations, which extend themselves, with pleasing 

 interest, to this ancient " monarch of the wood," 

 among whose boughs the war-cry has often rever- 

 berated in former ages, and who has witnessed 

 many a fierce contention, under our Henries and our 

 Edwards, hand to hand and foot to foot, for the do- 

 mains on which he still survives, in venerable, though 

 decaying majesty, surrounded by aged denizens of 

 the forest, the oldest of whom, nevertheless, com- 

 pared with himself, seem but as of yesterday. The 

 stilness of the scene, at the present time, forms a 

 soothing contrast to the recollections of the turbu- 

 lent past ; and the following lines are so in harmony 

 with the reflections it is calculated to awaken, that 

 it is hoped the transplanting of them, from the pages 



