Savernahe Forest. 



27 



TVith the exception of the New Forest, as it was called, and of that 

 it Hampton Court, there is no record of one having" been formed. 

 The very name of New Forest, given eight hundred years ago, im- 

 plies that all the rest of them, about seventy in number, were already 

 old in the time of William I. Near Maidenhead, in Berkshire, is a 

 well-known picturesque group of woodland scenery, called " The 

 Burnham Beeches," which the Corporation of London have lately 

 purchased in order to do what our President, Sir John Lubbock, has 

 been labouring' to do for ancient monuments of other kinds, viz. : to 

 place it under some authority that shall preserve it from injury. A 

 tourist happening to visit the Burnham Beeches and to admire some 

 of the most venerable patriarchs of the grove, asked an did native 

 whom he saw sitting on a bench if he could tell him who planted 

 those trees. " Planted ! " said the old man, in a tone of indignation, 

 "those trees never was planted. They're as ould as the world." 

 Now Savernake has some competitors for the honour of the old 

 man's somewhat exaggerated estimate. Besides the King Oak, the 

 Queen Oak, and some others, there is that " old, old, very old " 

 specimen of the vegetable kingdom called u The Duke's Vaunt," 

 supposed to be so called from having been the boast or glory of the 

 celebrated Protector Duke of Somerset, at one time owner of the 

 Forest. What age to put upon it, it is impossible to say, the mark 

 has been out of its mouth so long, but the Duke was beheaded three 

 hundred and twenty- seven years ago, and if it was his glory during 

 his life-time, it must have taken some centuries to arrive at that 

 distinction. It is described, with a woodcut, in the old Gentleman's 

 Magazine of 1802 — seventy-seven years ago — as being then 30 feet 

 round on the outside and 20 feet round the hollow within. The 

 writer of that description (which, however, is hardly borne out by 

 the actual circumference of the tree — 23 or 24 feet,) says that he 

 had once been one of a large party walking the parish bounds, and 

 that he was one of twenty boys who were shut up in it, and also 

 that a band of music, consisting of a violin, a hautboy, and a 

 bassoon, played several tunes inside. Some of the oldest men then 

 present said that, as long as they could recollect, it had been in the 

 same state. 



