1 



284 A DISCOURSE 



BOOK III. But these, and many other wholesome ordinances, especially as they 

 concern the forest of Dean, we have comprised in the late statute of the 

 twentieth of his majesty's reign, which I find enacted five years after the 

 first edition of this Treatise ; and these laws are worthy our perusal : as 

 also the statute prescribing a scheme of proportions for the several scant- 

 lings of building timber, (besides what we have already touched, book iii. 

 chap, iv.) which you have 19th Car. II. entitled, " an Act for the re- 

 building of London ;" to which I refer the reader. 



In the mean time, commissioners made purveyors for timber {though 

 for the king's use) cannot, by that authority, take timber-trees growing 

 upon any man's freehold, it being prohibited by PJagna Charta, cap. xxi. 

 Wee nos nee halUvi nostri, nee alii, eajnemus hoscum alienum ad eastra, vel 

 ad alia agenda nostra, nisi per voluntatem illius cujus hoscus ille fuerit. 



AVe might here enlarge this title, by shewing how different the forest- 

 laws are from the common-laws of England, both as to their antiquity, and 

 extreme .severity against all offenders, (of what degree soever,) till the 

 oppression was somewhat qualified by the Charta de Foresta, and after- 

 wards by yet more favourable * concessions ; since indeed our kings, 

 restae, &c. after thc rigour and example of the stern northern princes, rendered it 

 intolerable : but much of this concerned the preserving royal game ; 

 when as to timber-trees, (like Germany,) the whole island was almost but 

 one vast forest and wood, so abounding, that what people might have had 

 almost for carrying off the ground it grew on, is now grown so scarce in 

 those very places, as that fuel is sold by weight : I think IMr. Camden 

 mentions Oxfordshire, even so long since. And here I might mention 

 that vast Caledonian forest, heretofore in Scotland, (whence the sea has 

 zung de L. L. its name, and the people Caledonians,) having now not so much as a 

 landfa, ab Tit. siuglc tree to slicw for it. Have we not, then, the greatest reason in the 

 cL^ar 1. ""i'i. world to take aU imaginable care for the preservation and improvement 



(One cruelly p , ■, . • i • 1 t 



whipped at the 01 this prccious material f 



Hague ) See 

 also Carpzovius 



part'u!' S™t! We have said nothing of the laws against wood-stealers, (especially 



seq aild"^verai thosc who cut up to the Very roots the most hopeful and thriving young 



others: the Ger- ^ud scll buudlcs of them for walking-staves, &c.) severely punished 



man laws con- ' t_> / ^ j- 



cerning forests • Q^|^gy couutriesf, but Icavc the rest to our learned in the laws, craving 



are in abun- ^ i ' . j, 



f^Tre^-tedby P^rdon for the errors I may have fallen into, by presuming to discourse of 

 Kiochius and j-^atters out of my element and profession. 



Pellerus. 



Assizes fo- 



