52 DEER. Class L 



which though recorded only in a ballad, may, 

 from what we know of the manners of the times, 

 be founded on truth; not that it was attended with 

 all the circumstances the author of that natural, 

 but heroic composition hath given it, for on that 

 day neither a Percy or a Douglas fell : here 

 the poet seems to have clamed his privilege, 

 and mixed with this fray some of the events of 

 the battle of Otterbourne. 



When property became happily more divided 

 by the relaxation of the feodal tenures, these 

 extensive hunting-grounds became more limited, 

 and as tillage and husbandrv increased, the 

 beasts of chace were obliged to give way to 

 others more useful to the community. The 

 vast tracts of land before dedicated to hunting* 

 were then contracted, arid in proportion as the 

 useful arts gained ground, either lost their 

 original destination, or gave rise to the invention 

 of Parks.* Liberty and the arts seem coeval, 

 for when once the latter got footing, the former 

 protected the labors of the industrious from 

 being ruined by the licentiousness of the sports- 

 man, or being devoured by the objects of his 



* The largest park in England, about the year 1780, was that 

 belonging to the Duke of Ancaster, at Grimsthorpc, which, it 

 is said, contained not less than six thousand head of fallow-deer, 

 and is annually enlarging. There is near it another park con- 

 tainins two or three hundred head of stags and hinds. M^T. 



