7/2 



THE NATURE BOOK 



As in the case of the chestnuts, perhaps 

 the best elms are those out of the avenues, 

 growing singly or in irregular groups, 

 and the pasture lands (as distinguished 

 from the pleasure grounds) of the Park 

 form a simple rural setting proper for the 

 tree : only the presence of browsing sheep 

 and cattle is needed, or great cart horses 

 freed from harness and labour, taking 

 their ease in the grass. 



Upon one of the grassy knolls, artificially 

 steepened, and approached by a httle 

 winding grassy way, hollowed out pro- 

 bably by spade work of eighteen hundred 

 years ago, are the scanty remains of a 

 Roman villa. A few fragments of cut 

 stone, tile-brick, rubble, and a little piece 

 of tesselated pavement, are all that can be 

 seen above ground. What may lie below, 

 who can tell ? But it is certain that here 

 was once a human home, the scene of in- 

 tense and varied human emotion ; the 

 pride of the patrician, the subjection and 

 labour of the slave, with the familiar 

 domestic affections common to both. 



And the elm, that is ever found in 



human neighbourhood, that clusters 

 about the homesteads and shadows the 

 graves of so many an English village, 

 the elm is here, surmounting the grassy 

 hillock, befriending with its pleasant 

 life this forlorn haunt of the dead. Decay 

 has long been doing its work upon the 

 tree itself, stamping it with the seal 

 of mortality, and making it a still more 

 pathetic memorial of vanished life and 

 things forgotten. 



A part of the Park, on the Blackheath 

 side, is reserved of necessity for the use 

 of the deer ; and for such a purpose no 

 one can begrudge the sacrifice. But a 

 sacrifice it is, and a costly one ; for 

 the " Wilderness," as the enclosure is 

 called, is a very delightful and character- 

 istic bit of woodland scenery. 



Oaks, bracken and fallow deer ! Surely 

 in these we have the very essence of 

 Old England's — Merrie England's — green- 

 wood scenery, and we cannot look upon 

 them to-day without seeing all the sun- 

 shine of old romance quivering about them. 

 Their glades are for ever peopled with 



ONE OF THE GRACEFUL CURVES. 



