94 THE FORESTS OP ENGLAI^D. 



" Mr Jesse, in his account of Forest-Trees * says that 

 the venerable old pollards of Windsor Great Park interest 

 him more than anything else there. ' In looking at them,' 

 he says, ' my mind is imperceptibly carried back to the 

 many interesting historical facts which have happened 

 since they first sprang from the earth. I can fancy that 

 our Edwards and Henrys might have ridden under their 

 branches, — that they had been admired by Shakespeare ; 

 and that Pope, whose early youth was passed in the neigh- 

 bourhood, had reposed under their shade. At all events, 

 it is impossible to view some of these sires of the forest 

 without feeling a mixture of admiration and wonder.' 



" The size of some of the trees is enormous ; one beech- 

 tree, near Sawyer's Lodge, measuring, at six feet from the 

 ground, 36 feet round. It is now protected from injury, 

 and nature seems to be doing her best towards repairing 

 the damage which its exposure to the attacks of man and 

 beast has produced. It must once have been almost hol- 

 low, but the vacuum has been nearly filled up. One might 

 almost fancy that liquid wood, which had afterwards har- 

 dened, had been poured into the tree. The twistings and 

 distortions of this huge substance have a curious and 

 striking effect. There is no bark on this extraneous sub- 

 stance ; but the surface is smooth, hard, and without any 

 appearance of decay. 



" There are two magnificent old oaks near Cranbourne 

 Lodge; oneof them is just within the park paling, and about 

 three hundred yards from the Lodge, and the other stands 

 at the point of the road leading up to it. The former, at six 

 feet from the ground, measures 38 feet round. The vener- 

 able appearance of this fine old tree, ' his high top bald 

 with dry antiquity' — the size and expanse of its branches 

 — the gnarled and rugged appearance of its portly trunk— 

 and the large projecting roots which emanate from it, fill 

 the mind with admiration and astonishment. The other 

 tree is 36 feet in circumference at four feet from the 

 ground.'' 



* Gleaniogs in Natural History. Second Seriea. 



