28 AYLES HOLT. 



Yet neither its extent, nor the clearness of its 

 water, nor the resort of various and curious fowls, 

 nor its picturesque groups of cattle, can render 

 this mere so remarkable, as the great quantity of 

 coins that were found in its bed about forty years 

 ago 1 . 



IX. 



BY way of supplement, I shall trouble you once 

 more on this subject, to inform you that Wolmer, 

 with her sister forest Ayles Holt, alias Alice Holt 2 , 

 as it is called in old records, is held by grant from 

 the crown for a term of years. 



The grantees that the author remembers are, 

 Brigadier- General Emanuel Scroope Howe, and 

 his lady, Ruperta, who was a natural daughter of 

 Prince Rupert by Margaret Hughs ; a Mr. Mor- 

 daunt, of the Peterborough family, who married a 

 dowager Lady Pembroke; Henry Bilson Legge and 

 lady ; and now Lord Stawel, their son. 



The lady of General Howe lived to an advanced 

 age, long surviving her husband; and, at her 

 death, left behind her many curious pieces of 

 mechanism of her father's constructing, who was 

 a distinguished mechanic and artist 3 , as well as 



1 Some of these coins came afterwards into the possession 

 of the author. They were all copper ; part were of Marcus 

 Aurelius, and the Empress Faustina, his wife, the father and 

 mother of Commodus. W. J. 



2 " In Rot. Inquisit. de statu forest, in Scaccar. 36 Ed. III. 

 it is called Aisholt." In the same, " Tit. Wolmer and Aisholt 

 Hantisc. Dominus Rex habet unam capellam in liaia sua de 

 Kingesle." " Haia, sepes, sepimentum, parcus : a Gall, hale 

 gmdhaye." Spelman's Glossary. 



3 This prince was the inventor of mezzotinto. 



NOTE. The invention of mezzotinto is generally attributed to 

 Prince Rupert; but it is also by some assigned to Lieutenant-Colonel 

 Seigend, an officer in the service of the Landgrave of Hesse, so early 

 as the year 1643, from whom the prince derived the secret. W. J. 



