554 Strutt’s Sglva Britannica. 
We wish we could add, that in modern times such memo- 
rials of days gone by always received that respect and foster- 
ing care, at the hands of-their owners, which their age alone 
might reasonably demand. ‘The contrary, however, is too 
often the case. An enclosure of waste lands is on the point 
of taking place in a certain district, or, perhaps, it is merely 
136 
talked of, and in agitation: previously to the passing of the 
bill in parliament, and to the partition of the lands among the 
freeholders, the lord of the manor, sensibly alive to his own 
interest, and extremely jealous of his rights, or his still more 
grasping steward, seizes, with the rapacity of a harpy, upon 
every the minutest item of property to which he ean possibly 
