OF FOREST-TREES. 



301 



Nehem. ii. IS. 



standing at Wotton, and about that estate, timber that now were worth CHAP. Vli. 

 100,000^. Since of what was left my father, (who was a great preserver 

 of wood,) there has been 30,000^. worth of timber fallen by the axe, and 

 the fury of the late hurricane and storm : now no more Wotton, stripped 

 and naked, and ashamed almost to own its name ! 



All which considered, (for there are many other places and estates which 

 have suffered the like calamity,) should raise, methinks, a new spirit of in- 

 dustry in the nobility and gentry of the whole nation, like that with 

 which Nehemiah inspired the nobles as well as the people of the capti- 

 vity (than which nothing so much resembled that tedious slavery, and re- 

 turn from it, than did the restoration of king Charles II.) Let us arise up, 

 says the brave man, and huild: and so they strengthened their hands, for the 

 'people had a mind to the work. And such an universal spirit and resolution 

 to fall to planting, for the repairing of our wooden walls and castles, as 

 well as of our estates, should truly animate us : let us arise then, and plant, 

 and not give it over till we have repaired the havoc our barbarous ene- 

 mies have made : pardon, then, this zeal, O ye lovers of your country, if 

 it have transported me ! to you princes, dukes, earls, lords, knights, 

 and gentlemen, noble patriots, (as most concerned,) I speak, to encou- 

 rage and animate a work so glorious, so necessary. 



Of the noble forest of Nuremburg and its privileges, such care has been 

 taken by many emperors, that the very models of the ploughs are still pre- 

 served, drawn by above an hundred horses, (it being two hundi'ed years 

 since this royal plantation was begun,) wisely presaging what ravage might 

 be made by the spoil which the wars have since caused in that goodly 

 country ; which being then an almost continual forest, is now so sadly 

 wasted. Nor has this been the fate of Germany alone, but of all the most 

 flourishing parts of Europe, through the execrable and unsatiable ambition 

 of those who have been theoccasion of the ruin, not only of these venerable 

 shades, stately trees and avenues, (the graceful ornaments of the most 

 princely seats,) but of the miserable desolation of entire provinces, which 

 their legions have left, with the inhuman murders of so many christians, 

 without distinction or just provocation ! mischiefs not to be repaired 

 in many ages, the truculent and savage marks, among others, of a most 

 cJiristian king, nomine non re ! in the mean time, what provision this de- 

 molisher of woods in other countries makes to furnish and store his own 

 Volume II. Q q 



