FtJRTHBR I^OTES CONCERNING SIR WALTER SCOTT 215 



concerned are among these selected for translation by the late 

 Tom Taylor, whose approximate renderings, no doubt made 

 partly from the French translations, are highly spoken of by 

 M. de la Yillemarque himself. 



I observe another case of the way in which Sir "Walter was 

 dominated by his imagination in certain matters of fact. In his 

 collected Essays, in either that on Forestry, or that on the 

 Planting of Waste Lands, he asserts that Ettrick Forest, or 

 Selkirkshire, was formerly covered with wood, except where the 

 height of the hills prevented its growth; and that down to the 

 time of Charles I., great part of this wood remained. 



The reason for mentioning this date obviously is, that Font's 

 maps, which were surveyed in the latter part of James VI. 'a 

 reigQ, show the wood in Selkirkshire very much where it is now; 

 the Earehead Wood and the ElybankWood are the principal ones. 



And I was not greatly surprised, when looking for something 

 else in the back numbers of the Quarterly Review, to come upon 

 the statement in its original form, which was, that great part of 

 the wood had remained down to about 1700. It is evident that 

 when the article was published, some one had, either publicly or 

 privately, referred the author to Font's map of Selkirkshire. 



It is not so obvious why he should previously have brought 

 the covering of wood down to the particular date of 1700; but 

 the reason probably was, that the oldest people he could himself 

 remember, might remember back to about that time ; and 

 none of them could say they had known such a state of things. 



In the plantations of the present day, which are protected 

 from sheep and cattle, underwood of native trees springs up very 

 freely, when they are in the valleys ; but not in those on the hills. 



It is sufficiently curious that it should spring up so, on ground 

 that must have been often pastured before being planted and 

 enclosed. 



As a matter of fact, there was probably rather more wood in 

 Ettrick Forest in the Middle Ages than in the time of Charles 

 I., just as there is rather more now, and for the same reason, because 

 it was planted, and of course enclosed. When there was little 

 or no supply of foreign timber available, the wood for ship- 

 building and the roofs of houses must have been grown at home. 



And there is a little book on forestry, of the date of 1612, that 

 is the latter part of James VI. 's reign, entitled " An old Thrift 

 newly revived," or something like that, by G. S. There is 



