THE OAK. 47 



verted into an immense cheese chamber ; and upon 

 my first looking into it, in the dusk of a summer's 

 evening, when a number of these huge circular 

 things were scattered upon the floor, it struck me 

 that the maids of honour had just slipped off their 

 fardingales, to prepare for a general romping. 



" Elizabeth is reported to have been much pleased 

 with the retirement of this park, which was filled 

 with tall and massy timbers, and to have been 

 particularly amused and entertained with the so- 

 lemnity of its walks and bowers. But this oak, from 

 which the tradition is that she shot a buck with her 

 own hand, was her favourite tree. It is still in 

 some degree of vigour, though most of its boughs 

 are broken off, and those which remain are ap- 

 proaching to a total decay, as well as its vast trunk : 

 the principal arm, now bald with dry antiquity, shoots 

 up to a great height above the leafage, and, being 

 hollow and truncated at top, with several cracks 

 resembling loop-holes, through which the light 

 shines into its cavity, it gives us an idea of the 

 winding staircase in a lofty Gothic turret, which, 

 detached from the other ruins of some venerable 

 pile, hangs tottering to its fall, and affects the 

 mind of a beholder after the same manner, by its 

 greatness and sublimity. 



" No traces of the old hall, as it was called, are 

 now remaining; having fallen into an irreparable 

 state of decay. It was taken down a few years. 



