StruWs Delicice Sylvdriim, 387 



respect to the Warwickshire Arden, little or nothing is known 

 on the subject. That it ever had any claims to the name or 

 legal character of a forest, as Mr. Strutt, on no better autho- 

 rity than the poet Drayton, leaves us to infer, we very much 

 doubt, or rather entirely disbelieve. To some this may per- 

 haps appear a startling assertion ; however, it is not hastily 

 made. " Arden" is supposed by Whitaker to mean a great 

 wood ; and there can be no doubt that a certain district in 

 Warwickshire, comprehending probably the Woodland in 

 opposition to the Feldon, was so called ; from whence Turkil 

 de Arden acquired his appellation, and the distant vills of 

 Weston in Arden and Hampton in Arden their adjunctive 

 distinction ; but that its magnitude corresponded with the 

 poet Drayton's verse, as quoted by Mr. Strutt, 



" Her one hand touching Trent, the other Severn's side," 

 is not to be believed for a moment ; nor dare we place any 

 more reliance on the " Map of the Arden," in Bartletfs 

 Manduessedum. That the district in question was woodland 

 generally, is clear from the circumstance of lands in the time 

 of Henry the Third being sold " per magnam mensuram de 

 Ardenne," the woodland measure long continuing to be larger 

 than that which was applied in meting other lands. There 

 are, indeed, smatterers in antiquarian lore, who scruple not 

 to maintain that the present names of certain parishes in 

 Warwickshire still serve to point out the boundaries of the 

 ancient Forest of Arden. Thus they assert, and so far assert 

 truly, that there runs through a portion of the county, com- 

 mencing from the north, and extending in a south-easterly 

 direction, an uninterrupted line of parishes, the names of 

 which terminate in " ley," as, e, g, Badesley, Baxterley, 

 Ansley, Arley, Astley, Fillongley, Corley, Allesley, &c. And 

 these, we are required to believe, constituted what they choose 

 to call the lei/ or lai/ lands of the forest, situate on its out- 

 skirts, meaning by that term the cultivated lands, or those 

 employed for agricultural purposes, in contradistinction to the 

 uncultivated or woodland tracts. All this, we hesitate not to 

 say, is in our opinion mere antiquarian quackery ; the termi- 

 nation of these names having about as much to do with 

 defining the boundaries of the forest as it has with determin- 

 ing the source and direction of the mysterious Niger. The 

 truth, we believe, is, as we are compelled to state, and have 

 above pretty broadly hinted, that the Warwickshire Forest of 

 Arden never was, in fact, any forest at all ; but that the dis- 

 trict, being generally woodland (as already stated), acquired 

 the appellation of forest in contradistinction to the more open 

 country. - 



