112 
were settled upon the throne. The passion for 
all kinds of field sports was then carried to an 
unjustifiable excess, and every civil right was 
held subordinate to its indulgence. This ar- 
dour was stronger than the consideration of 
religion, even in that superstitious age.— 
Whole villages were demolished, and the in* 
habitants dispossessed of their houses and 
their lands without any recompense, nay, 
even the most sacred edifices were thrown 
down, and all turned into one vast waste to 
make room for the pleasures of a lawless 
tyrant. Sanguinary laws were enacted to 
preserve the game ; and it was less criminal 
to destroy one of the human species than a 
beast of the chase. These melancholy scenes 
were all peculiarly examplified in the forma, 
tion of the New Forest, in Hampshire, which 
extended above thirty miles. In allusion to 
the above circumstances, Pope has the fol- 
lowing lines: 
" Proud Nimrod first the bloody chase began, 
" A mighty hunter, and his prey was man. 
" Our haughty Norman boasts that barbarous name, 
" And makes his trembling slaves the royal game: 
Qi The fields are ravish'd from th* industrious swains* 
" F rom men their cities, and from Gods their fanes t 
