30 NATURAL HISTORY 



The grantees that the author remembers are Brigadier- 

 General Emanuel Scroop Howe, and his lady, Ruperta, who 

 ' was a natural daughter of Prince Rupert by Margaret 

 Hughs ; a Mr. Mordaunt, of the Peterborough family, who 

 married a dowager Lady Pembroke ; Henry Bilson Legge 

 and lady; and now Lord Stawel, their son. 1 



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 con- 

 structing, who was a distinguished mechanic and artist/ 

 as well as warrior ; and among the rest, a very complicated 

 clock, lately in possession of Mr. Elmer, the celebrated 

 game-painter at Farnham, in the county of Surrey. 



Though these two forests are only parted by a narrow 

 range of enclosures, yet no two soils can be more different : 

 for The Holt consists of a strong loam, of a miry nature, 

 carrying a good turf, and abounding with oaks that grow 

 to be large timber ; while Wolmer is nothing but a hungry, 

 sandy, barren waste. 



The former, being all in the parish of Binsted, is about 

 two miles in extent from north to south, and near as much 

 from east to west ; and contains within it many woodlands 

 and lawns, and the great lodge where the grantees reside ; 

 and a smaller lodge called Goose Green ; and is abutted on 

 by the parishes of Kingsley, Frinsham, Farnham and 

 Bentley ; all of which have right of common. 



One thing is remarkable; that, though The Holt has 

 been of old well stocked with fallow-deer, unrestrained by 

 any pales or fences more than a common hedge, yet they 

 were never seen within the limits of Wolmer ; nor were the 



1 On the expiration of the grant to Lord Stawel, the Commissioners 

 of Woods and Forests resumed possession of The Holt. All the lands 

 held by him, and two-thirds of the former open forest, were subsequently 

 enclosed and planted. ED. 



2 This prince was the inventor of mezzotinto. G. W. It would 

 perhaps be more correct to say that he was the introducer only of this 

 art into England. The invention it seems is due to Ludwig von Siegen, 

 who about 1654 communicated the secret to Prince Rupert (c/. Wai- 

 pole's " Anecdotes of Painters and Engravers," Bonn's edition, vol. iii. 

 p. 393). ED. 



