more, and were it planted round with thick covert 

 (for now it is perfectly naked), it might make a valu- 

 able decoy. 



Yet neither its extent, nor the clearness of its 

 water, nor the resort of various and curious fowls, 

 nor its picturesque groups of cattle, can render this 

 meer so remarkable as the great quantity of coins 

 that were found in its bed about forty years ago.^ 



LETTER IX. 

 To Thomas Pennant, Esq. 



By way of supplement, I shall trouble you once 

 more on this subject, to inform you that Wolmer, 

 with her sister forest Ayles Holt, alias Alice Holt,^ 



* The circumstances under which these coins were discovered are 

 thus related in the author's " Antiquities of Selborne : " — "In the very 

 dry summers of 1740 and 41, the bed of this lake became as dry and 

 dusty as the surrounding heath ; and some of the forest cottagers, remem- 

 bering stories of coins found by their fathers and grandfathers, began to 

 search also, and with great success ; they found great heaps of coin, one 

 lying on the other, as shot there out of a bag, many of them in good 

 preservation. They consisted solely of Roman copper coin in hundreds, 

 and some medals of the Lower Empire. The neighbouring gentry and 

 clergy chose what they liked, and some dozens fell to the author, chiefly 

 of Marcus Aurelius and the Empress Faustina. Those of Faustina were 

 in high relief, exhibiting agreeable features, and the medals of a paler 

 colour than the coins." 



f " In Rot. Inquisit. de statu forest, in Scaccar. 36 Ed. 3, it is called 

 Aisholt." In " Tit. Wolmer and Aisholt Hantisc,"' we are told the 

 Lord King had one chapel in his park at Kingesle."' Dominus Rex 



29 



