( 8o ) 



five on the fpot, become one rich blended 

 furface. — And yet, even on the fpot, winding 

 lanes, with full-grown hedges on each fide, 

 are often beautiful. It is clipping, and making, 

 as they phrafe it, which ruin the pidurefque 

 idea. Utility is always counteracting beauty. 

 No fooner is the hedge in perfecftion, than 

 it is deftroyed*. 



The approach to Ringwood, as we leave 

 the wild heath, which gave occafion to this 

 digreflion, is woody and pleafant. Ring- 

 wood was formerly the boundary of the foreft 

 in this part ; and in times of flill more remote 

 antiquity, was a place of great note. I know 

 not whether in Saxon times, it did not claim 

 the honours of regal refidence. At prefent 

 it is a cheerful town, feated in a flat country. 



* If the reader wifli to know an ancient mode of making 

 hedges, he will find it, as follows, in the fifth book of Q^ 

 Curtius. " Having planted twigs verj' clofe in the fitiiation they 

 wiflied, they bent their branches, as they made flioots, and 

 inferted their extremities into the earth. Here they took root; 

 and from thefe roots fliot into new branches. Thefe again 

 were bent into the earth, and fo on, till a fence was obtained 



of the dimenfions wanted." 1 have feen this mode, I believe, 



pradifed in fome parts of England. 



on 



