PT) = 
AMENTIFER.E. 151 
stubborn for the Cabinet.” In his description of Penshurst, Ben Jonson refers to 
this tree thus— 
“That taller tree, which of a nut was set 
At his great birth, when all the Muses met.” 
Waller tried to impress his love for Saccharissa on it :— 
““ Go, boy, and carve this passion on the bark 
Of yonder tree, which stands the sacred mark 
Of noble Sidney’s birth.” 
“Turpin’s Oak” is a celebrated tree, and we believe still stands on a plot of 
ground on the road to Barnet, opposite the “Green Man.” The notorious Dick 
Turpin was, it is said, accustomed to take his station behind this tree when he was 
on a freebooting expedition to this part of the country. Its closeness to the great 
high road to the north made it a convenient ambush not only for Dick, but for high- 
waymen generally, who, about a century and a quarter ago, were continually robbing 
the mails, as well as travellers. 
In Windsor Forest there are several celebrated oaks ; one of these, the King Oak, 
is said to have been a favourite tree of William the Conqueror, who made this a 
royal forest. In Mr. Loudon’s time an oak was standing supposed to be the largest 
and oldest in the forest. It was quite hollow, and the space within about eight feet 
in diameter. It was said to be above 1,000 years old. Pope’s Oak in Binfield 
Wood, Windsor Forest, has the words “Here Pope sang” inscribed on it. ‘‘Herne’s 
Oak,” in Windsor Park, has been immortalised by Shakespeare. There has been 
much controversy as to the identity of the tree now regarded as the celebrated one. 
It was stated to have been felled by order of George IIL., about fifty years ago; but 
Mr. Loudon, thinking this very improbable, took great pains to ascertain the truth, 
and was convinced that in his time it was stillstanding. Tradition, which has been 
transmitted for many generations amongst the inhabitants of Windsor, fixes on one 
tree, now dead, on the piece of ground close to Froremore Lodge as the veritable oak 
of Herne the Hunter. Its association with the ‘“ Merry Wives of Windsor,” and as 
the scene of their merry pranks, gives it an interest, even though it be now withered 
and leafless. Mr. Loudon writes: ‘‘ Among the many appropriate passages it brought 
to my recollection, was the following— 
‘There want not many that do fear 
In deep of night to walk by this Herne’s Oak.’ 
The footpath which leads across the park is stated to have passed, in former times, 
close to Herne’s Oak. The path is now ata little distance from it, and was probably 
altered in order to protect the tree from injury. I was glad to find a ‘ pit hard by,’ 
where ‘Nan and her troop of fairies and the Welch devil Evans’ might all have 
couch’d without being perceived by the ‘fat Windsor stag,’ when he spake like 
‘Herne the Hunter.’”’ The pit above alluded to has recently had a few thorns 
planted in it, and the circumstance of its being near the oak, with the diversion of 
the footpath, seems to prove the identity of the tree, in addition to the traditions 
respecting it :— 
“There is an old tale goes that Herne the Hunter, 
Sometime a keeper here in Windsor Forest, 
Doth all the winter time, at still midnight, 
Walk round about an oak, with great ragged horns, 
And there he blasts the tree.” 
