Chapter V (2)

My hero was young and unschooled in the world's wickedness, but he knew that where two opposing elements come together with much force, whatever happens to lie between them must suffer. What should be done was a question of no little importance to the Argonauts. Most of them were in favor of running the risk of a collision and letting the vessel drive straight through. Jason thought this a judgment worthy of young men whose lady-loves give expression to their most sacred sentiments by gifts of pincushions and bookmarks. But he had something to consider more than they--yea, more than any other living man--in exemplification of the pleasing fallacy that besets all lovers in all ages. Blessed be God that it is so!

The original Jason in the fable let loose a dove upon the waters, and the dove lost only a tail-feather or two when the clashing islands clashed their worst, and in the moment of the rebound the Argo swept through in safety. The modern J. thought of this in his predicament, and having turned it in his mind, he concluded that whereas the pioneer Argonaut did not meet his princess till after his encounter with the elements, he was not worthy of consideration; for had he known her and loved her as some one knew and loved some one else at that moment, most likely he would not have valued his life so slightly. He clewed up his canvas like a wise mariner, and lay to while the Symplegades butted one another with their foreheads of adamant, and the sea was white with terror all about them. Jason was no coward: he would have braved the passage had he alone been concerned in the result; but for Maud in her rose-garden and for the future, dear to him as his hope of heaven, he paused and trembled.

It is a pity there should be so little pausing and trembling among the clashing islands when life hangs in the balance and the odds are against it. But there always has been and always will be this little, because we believe that nothing but experience is capable of teaching us, and experience invariably teaches it all wrong end to, so that we begin our lesson with a disaster and conclude it with a slow recovery.

During Jason's hour of deliberation his guardian angel, who was the only one having his interests really at heart, and who loved him unselfishly,--this angel advised him in the similitude of a dream to "luff a little and go round the obstacles." Jason luffed, and passed on with colors flying; which was doubtless much better than trying to squeeze through the floating islands in the midst of an exceedingly disagreeable sea.

Then came the land beyond, the long-sought kingdom, full of arts and wiles. Jason was beset with ten thousand temptations, and was more than once upon the point of falling into a snare, when, however, he seemed to behold the apparition of his withered rose, which bloomed and blushed again at such times, and gave out a faint fragrance, so like a breath from that Eden on the sunny slope that he paused and grew strong, and was saved.

His troubles were not yet over. There was the bargaining for the golden fleece, and the tempting offer of the dragons' teeth which he was to sow. They were the lusts of the body, that, once planted, spring up an armed force of bloody and persistent accusers. But that precious rose! How it blossomed over and over for his especial benefit, a perpetual warning and an unfailing talisman--a very profitable sort of blossom to wear in one's button-hole in these times! But such blossoms are scarce indeed.

In due course of time that potent charm got him the golden fleece in a very natural and business-like way, and, rejoicing in his possessions, Jason returned to his vessel and trimmed his sails for home.

Merry the hearts that sailed with him, and fresh the winds that wafted them onward, while, as is usual at sea, nothing occurred during the voyage worth mentioning an hour after its occurrence. Jason in his new joy had almost forgotten that withered token. In deep remorse at his thoughtlessness, he sought his treasure, and, horror of horrors! every leaf had fallen from the stem, the blossom was annihilated for ever. He dwelt upon this episode morbidly, as upon a presentiment: he pictured in his mind the hill-slope cottage deserted, the rose-garden wasted and full of tares, and the bleak wind blowing whither it listed through those avenues of beauty, for desolation possessed them all. He groaned in spirit and wrestled with his new and invisible adversary, beseeching the Most Merciful, from the bitterness of his suspense, a speedy deliverance or a happy death.

III.

There were thistles and tares in the unkept rose-garden, and the cottage was abandoned to a sisterhood of doves, who mourned perpetually for their lost princess. The place was desolate, yet there had been no sudden desertion of it. For many months no news had been heard of the Argonauts. They were considerably overdue: the sages of Dreamland shook their grizzly heads. They were just as sage and shaky in those days as in these degenerate times. The maids of the hamlet wept for a season, then turned from sorrowing, dried their tears, took unto themselves new lovers, and the world wagged well in Dreamland.

But Maud was a truer soul than any amongst them: she prayed hourly for Jason's prosperity, and was trusting and hopeful until it seemed almost that something had whispered to her the fate of the voyagers. Then she mourned night and day: she went into retirement with the sweet-faced nuns at the headland, whose secluded life had ever been very grateful to her. She gave out of her bounty to all who asked, and rested not then, but sought the sick and the suffering, and they were comforted, and blessed her who had blessed them. They began to think her half an angel in Dreamland, and it seemed as though she were not made for this world at all. The same thing happens now occasionally, and in this way we acknowledge our shortcomings before our fellow-men and women when we find some one considerably above the average who shames us into confessing it. I hope the Recording Angel is within hearing at these precious moments.

The world certainly possessed no charms for one of Maud's temperament: it never did possess any for her. She was as out of place in it as a mourning dove in a city mob. Her spirit sought tranquillity, and she found it in the serene and changless convent life. You and I might seek in vain for anything like peace of spirit in such a place: we might find it a stale and profitless imprisonment; and perhaps it speaks badly for both of us that it is so. The violet finds its silent cell in the earth-crevice by the hidden spring a sufficient refuge, and rejoices in it, but the sea-grass that has all its life tossed in the surges would think that a very dull sort of existence. There are human violets in the world, and human sunflowers and poppies, and doves also, and apes and alligators; and some of them come within one of being inhuman; and sometimes that _one_ drops out, and the inhuman swallows up the human.

Maud was the mourning dove seeking its bower of shade: she used to fancy herself a nun, and followed the prescribed duties of the house as faithfully as Sister Grace herself. She knelt in the little chapel of the convent till her back ached and her knees were lame, but it was a never-failing joy in time of trouble, and her time of tremble had come. Maud said many prayers before an altar of exceeding loveliness, where fresh flowers seemed to breathe forth an unusual fragrance. There was a statue of the Virgin, said to possess some miraculous qualities: tradition whispered that on two or three occasions the expression on the face of the statue had been seen to change visibly. Maud heard of this, and was very eager to witness the miracle, for it was thought to be nothing less than miraculous by the good Sisters. She bowed before the altar for hours, and dreamed of the marble face till she seemed to see its features smiling upon her and its small, slim hand beckoning her back to prayer. She grew nervous and pale and almost ill with watching and waiting, and at last was found prostrate and insensible at the foot of the statue, overcome with excitement and exhaustion. When she grew better she vowed she had seen the head bowing to her, and the hands spread over her in benediction: no one could deny it, for she was alone in the chapel. After that there was a feast of lilies at the convent, and Maud became Sister Somebody or other, and never again set foot beyond the great gates of the convent wall.

The consecration was doubtless a blessing to her, for she was happy in her new home, and found a sphere of usefulness that employed her hours to the best advantage. Moreover, she grew to be a sensible nun, and ceased to look for supernatural demonstrations in the neighborhood of the chapel. She grew hearty, and was cheerful, and sang at her work, and prayed with more honesty and less sentiment. Her life was as placid as a river whose waters are untroubled by tempestuous winds, and upon her bosom light cares, like passing barges, left but a momentary wake.

As Maud mused in her cell one day, through the narrow barred window she caught a glimpse of the burnished sea bearing upon its waves a weather-beaten barque inward bound. There was danger that her mind might wander off, piloted by her dreamy and worshipful eyes. She arose, drew across the opening a leathern curtain, and returned with undisturbed complacence to her prayers.

IV.

Jason, having among his freights the veritable golden fleece, still coursed the seas, but beheld with rapture the fair outlines of the Dreamland coast traced in the far blue and mysterious horizon. The wind freshened: hour after hour they were nearing port, and as the whole familiar picture grew more and more distinct, Jason saw the convent towers looming like a great shadow, and afterward the sunny slope whereon the rose-garden grew.

The manner of his quitting the barque before she was fairly within communication with the shore was hardly worthy of his calling. I forbear to dwell upon this exhibition of human weakness, for almost any one in Jason's shoes would have been equally regardless of the regulations, and in consequence proportionally unseamanlike.

With soiled garments and unshorn beard Jason ran to the hill. No one of the idlers in port recognized the returned wanderer, and he assured himself of the fact before venturing upon his visit to the dove-cot where Maud dwelt, for he wished to gaze upon her from afar, and in silence to worship her, unknown and unregarded. When he reached the wicket, breathless with haste and excitement, he at once beheld the ruin of his hopes--the thistles in the paths, the roses overgrown and choked with weeds, the sad and general decay. Jason smote his breast in a paroxysm of despair, while the doves fluttered out from the porch of the cottage in amazement at the approach of a human foot to their domains.

What could it mean? he asked himself again and again, while suspicions taunted him almost to madness. Up and down that disordered garden he paced like a ghostly sentinel; the doves fluttered to and fro, and were dismayed; the night-winds came in from the chilly sea, and the dews gathered in his beard. Through the deepening dusk he beheld the lights of the little town below him: across the solemn silence floated the clear notes of the vesper-bell. Jason turned toward the tower on the headland. A single ray of light stealing from one of the high, narrow windows shot through the mist toward heaven. "The ladder of Jacob's dream," said Jason: "on it the angels are ascending and descending in their visitations. Oh that I, like Jacob, might receive intelligence from these!"

With the heaviest heart that ever burdened man he returned to the town and entered the open doors of the church, seeking a few moments of repose. An alien in his own land and unwelcomed of any, Jason sought the good priest and learned the fate of Maud. She was dead to the world and to him. It was but the realization of his fears, and he was in some measure prepared for it; yet the best part of the man was killed with the force of that blow. His only hope was gone. He set his house in order, like one about to leave it, never to return: his golden fleece was made over to enrich the convent, and, as the magnanimous offering of a homelesss and nameless voyager, it delights the happy creatures within those walls, and the shrine of the Virgin was made more wonderfully beautiful than it is possible to conceive.

That night Jason walked in the shadow of the lofty walls and poured out his sorrowful prayers upon the winds that swept about them. Once in his agony he beat at the massive gates, demanding in the name of God and of mercy admittance for a lost soul that had no shelter save under that roof, and no salvation away from it; but his bleeding hands made no impression upon the ponderous doors, and the silent inmates at prayer heard nothing save their own whispers, or dreamed in their cells of heaven and of peace.

So the cry of that hopeless soul rang up to the stars unanswered, and the night frowned down upon him with impenetrable darkness.

End of the tragedy of Jason's Quest, which might easily have been a pleasant comedy if Maud had only spoken her mind in the right place. Will women never learn--since God has given them the same instincts with man, to love, to trust, to doubt, to hate and to make themselves at times disagreeable, even with a more complete success than men in each of these lines of dramatic business--that God must have intended also that they should have the equal right to choose the particular object upon which they may exercise those various offices of love, trust, etc., etc.? I shall never cease to wonder why they are persistently and stupidly silent through six thousand years, content to let their hearts wither and die within them, or surrender at last to the wretched apology for a lover who offers himself as a substitute, and is surprised at rinding himself accepted.

To be sure, it is less dramatic. Jason might have come back and married Maud: there would have been a pretty wedding and some delightful hours before things grew dull and commonplace, as they must have done ultimately. That rose-garden would have come to grief when once the children got to playing in it; Jason, on some tedious afternoon, when overhauling old letters and the like, would have thrown out that withered rose (of precious memory), quite forgetful of its significance; Maud would have lost her myrtle leaf in house-cleaning. Yet what were the odds? A withered rose and a myrtle leaf are scarcely worth the keeping.

You will remember how it turned out in the days of the gods: Jason wearied of Medea and the children; Medea was disgusted with such conduct, and behaved like a savage; there was general unhappiness in the family; and I blush for my sex--which is Jason's--whenever I think of it. Now, if my Jason had married his Maud, it would have scarcely been worth noticing beyond the simple register in the _Daily Dreamlander_, after having been thrice published from the pulpit between the Gospel and the Creed--"Jason to Maud."

As Jason was not heard of after the windy night under the wall of the convent, there were many surmises concerning his disappearance. It was thought that he had again embarked upon some voyage of discovery. I believe he had, and it was a desperate one for him. The other Argonauts married such maids as were left unmarried, and they did well to do so. Some of the old sweethearts regretted their haste, and looked enviously upon the new brides of Dreamland; but most of them were satisfied with their children, and contented with such husbands as Heaven had sent them.

Life grew slow in the little drowsy seaport; the old tales of the Symplegades were stale and tedious; the Argonauts had become spiritless and corpulent and lazy. One night a great gale swept in from the sea: the earth fairly trembled under the repeated shocks of the breakers. Old people looked troubled and young people looked scared, and on the worst night of all the convent bell was heard to toll, and then everybody feared something dreadful was happening to the nuns, and everybody lay still and hoped it would soon be over. The nuns wondered who rang the bell; and when every one had denied all knowledge of it, it was known that most likely the devil had rung it, for it was a dreadful night, and such a one as he best likes to be out in.

In the morning, when the wind and the sea had gone down somewhat, the wreckers found a stark corpse among the rocks under the headland, lying with its face to the tower. It was dreadfully mangled: no one could identify it as being any one in particular, and it was impossible to know whether death had occurred by accident or intentionally; so it was shrouded and put away out of Christian burial in the common field of the unfortunate. The nuns sang a _requiem_, as was their custom, and Maud prayed earnestly for all followers of the sea; and the echo of her _miserere_ is the saddest line in the story of Jason's Quest.

CHARLES WARREN STODDARD.

FOREBODINGS.

What weight is this which presses on my soul?
Powerless to rise, I sink amidst the dust:
The days in solemn cycle o'er me roll,
While, praying, I can only wait and trust.

--Trust the dear Hand that all my life has led
Through pastures green, by waters pure and still:
If now He leads me through dark ways and dread,
Shall I dare murmur, whatsoe'er His will?

DEER-PARKS.

There is nothing in England at the present day much more distinctly an institution of that country than its deer-parks. Although it seems probable that the Saxons had some sort of enclosed or partially enclosed chases where deer were hunted or taken in the toils, the regular and systematic enclosure of parks would appear to have come in with the Normans. According to the old Norman law, no subject could form a park without a grant from the Crown, or immemorial prescription, which was held presumptive evidence of such a grant.

On the Continent there would appear to have been much more strictness in this respect than in England. "In April, 1656," says Reresby in his travels, "I returned to Saumur, where I stayed two months: then I went to Thouars in Brittany, where the duke of Trémouille hath his best house. Thouars is looked upon as one of the best manors in all France, not so much for profit (a great extent of land there sometimes affording not much rent), but for greatness of tenure; five hundred gentlemen, it is said, holding their lands from it. Going to wait on the duke, I found him very kind when I told him my country, the late earl of Derby having married his sister. [1] He commanded me to dine with him, and the next time mounted me upon one of his horses to wait on him a-hunting in his park, which, not being two miles about, I thought of little compass to belong to so great a person, till I found that few are allowed to have any there save the princes of the blood. So true is it that there are more parks in England than in all Europe besides."

A large park would appear to have been among the many luxuries of the princely Medici, for Reresby says: "Ten miles from Florence the duke hath another country-house, nothing so considerable in itself as in its situation, standing betwixt several hills on one side, covered with vines and olive trees, and a valley divided into many walks by rows of trees leading different ways: one leads to a park where the great duke hath made a paddock course by the direction of Signior Bernard Gascoigne, an Italian, who, having served our late king in his wars, carried the pattern from England. Near to this house, Poggio-Achaiano, is another park, the largest in Italy, or rather chase, said to be thirty miles in compass."

Foremost amongst English parks is Windsor. The immense tracts by which Windsor was formerly surrounded consisted of park and forest. Windsor Forest has gradually diminished in size. In the time of Charles I. it contained twelve parishes, and probably covered not less than 100,000 acres. According to a survey in 1789-92, it amounted to 59,600 acres, of which the enclosed property of the Crown amounted to 5454. Like all the other forests in England, it has been much encroached on, and now consists of only some 1450 acres adjoining Windsor Great Park. The rest of the land formerly composing it has been sold or leased. Enough of the forest remains, in conjunction with the park, to enable the visitor to make many delightful excursions. The most agreeable way of seeing this sylvan country is on horseback. Perhaps nowhere in the world can one get a more delicious canter. By a little management it is easy to take a ride of twenty-five miles without more than a couple of miles off the turf. In 1607 the Great Park was stated at 3650 acres: it consists now of about one thousand acres less.

The principal royal park in modern days, next to Windsor, is Richmond. This covers more than two thousand acres, and, thanks to the railway, may almost be regarded as a lung of London, being only eight miles distant from the city. Richmond Park is as replete as Windsor with historical association, and came into especial importance in the reign of Charles I. That king, who was excessively addicted to the sports of the field, had a strong desire to make a great park, for red as well as fallow deer, between Richmond and Hampton Court, where he had large wastes of his own, and great parcels of wood, which made it very fit for the use he designed it for; but as some parishes had rights of commonage in the wastes, and many gentlemen and farmers had good houses and farms intermingled with them which they had inherited or held on lease, and as, without including all these, the park would not be large enough for Charles's satisfaction, the king, who was willing to pay a very high price, expected people to gratify him by parting with their property. Many did so, but--like the blacksmith of Brighton who utterly refused to be bought out when George IV. was building his hideous pavilion, and the famous miller of Potsdam, that Mordecai at the gate of Sans Souci--"a gentleman who had the best estate, with a convenient house and gardens, would by no means part with it, and made a great noise as if the king would take away men's estates at his own pleasure." The case of this gentleman and his many minor adherents soon caused a regular row. The lord treasurer, Juxon, bishop of London, who accompanied Charles to the scaffold, and other ministers were very averse to the scheme, not only on account of the hostile feeling it had evoked, but because the purchase of the land and making a brick wall of ten miles around it, which was what the king wanted, was a great deal too costly for his depleted exchequer. However, Charles, with his usual fatal obstinacy, would not hear of abandoning the scheme, and told Lord Cottington, who did his utmost to dissuade him from it, "he was resolved to go through with it, and had already caused brick to be burned and much of the wall to be built." This beginning of the wall before people consented to part with their land or common rights, increased the public feeling on the subject, and, happening at a time when public opinion was growing strongly against arbitrary rule, was no doubt one of the circumstances which contributed to Charles's fall.

George II. and Queen Caroline lived much at Richmond, and the interview between Jeanie Deans and Her Majesty took place here. Jeanie, it will be remembered, told her ducal friend that she thought the park would be "a braw place for the cows"--a sentiment similar to that of Mr. Black's Highland heroine, Sheila, who pronounced it "a beautiful ground for sheep."

The practice of hunting deer in a park, now quite a thing of the past, appears to have been very prevalent at Richmond during this reign, and apparently was attended with considerable risk. In a chronicle of 1731 we read:

"_August_ 13, 1731. The royal family hunted a stag in Richmond new park: in the midst of the sport, Sir Robert Walpole's horse fell with him just before the queen's chaise, but he was soon remounted, and Her Majesty ordered him to bleed by way of precaution.

"_Aug_. 28, 1731. The royal family hunted in Richmond Park, when the Lord Delaware's lady and Lady Harriet d'Auverquerque, daughter to the earl of Grantham, were overturned in a chaise, which went over them, but did no visible hurt. Mr. Shorter, one of the king's huntsmen, had a fall from his horse, and received a slight contusion in his head.

"_Sept_. 13, 1731. Some of the royal family and persons of quality hunted a stag in Richmond Park. A stag gored the horse of Coulthorp Clayton, Esq., and threw him. The Lady Susan Hamilton was unhorsed.

"_Sept_. 14, being Holy Rood Day, the king's huntsmen hunted their free buck in Richmond new park with bloodhounds, according to custom."

It will be noted that this sport took place at a season when no hunting is now done in England.

There are two other small royal parks within a walk of Richmond--Bushy and Hampton Court. Both contain magnificent trees.

The New Forest is now the only royal appanage of the kind, and the House of Hanover has never made use of it for hunting purposes, although the Stuart kings were very fond of going there. It was to enjoy this territory that Charles II. commenced the magnificent palace at Winchester, the finished portions of which are now used as barracks. Nell Gwyn's quarters at the deanery are still shown. Up to 1779 there was a great tract of royal forest-ground near London, on the Essex side, known as Enfield Chase, containing numbers of deer. If we remember rightly, it is alluded to in _The Fortunes of Nigel_.

There are many more parks in the south than in the north of England--a circumstance which is remarkable, having regard to the wilder character of the ground in the former.

According to a valuable work on parks published a few years ago by Mr. Shirley, a large landed proprietor, there are three hundred and thirty-four parks still stocked with deer in the different counties of England, and red deer are found in about thirty-one. It is supposed that the oldest is that attached to Eridge Castle, near that celebrated and most ancient of English watering-places, Tonbridge Wells, in Sussex. It is very extensive, and there are no less than ninety miles of grass drives cut through the park and woods. Almost the largest park is that attached to the present duke of Marlborough's famous seat, Blenheim. A large proportion of this magnificent demesne formed part of Woodstock Chase, a favorite hunting-seat of British sovereigns from an early date up to the time of Queen Anne. It was then granted by the Crown to the hero of Blenheim, far more fortunate in respect of the nation's gift than the hero of Waterloo, whose grant of lands lay in a swamp which it cost him a little fortune to drain. Next to Blenheim, in point of size, stands Tatton in Cheshire, the seat of Lord Egerton. It contains 2500 acres, and the portion appropriated to deer is far larger than at Blenheim. Tatton is from ten to eleven miles around.

Another extensive park, 1500 acres, is that at Stowe, the duke of Buckingham's. When in 1848 the family misfortunes reached a climax which necessitated the sale of everything in Stowe House, the deer in the park were sold off. But twenty-five years have rolled by, and restored in a great degree the prosperity of the family. The duke is again living at his splendid ancestral seat, is by degrees restoring to their former home as the opportunity offers many of its scattered treasures, and has restocked the park with deer.

Two parks pre-eminently famous for the magnificence of their oak timber are Keddleston, Lord Scarsdale's, in Derbyshire, and Bagot's Park, Lord Bagot's, in Staffordshire. The latter, which contains a thousand acres, is a very ancient enclosure. It contains, besides the deer, a herd of wild goats said to have been presented by Richard II. to an ancestor of the present owner.

Parks vary from a paddock of twenty-one acres to twenty-eight hundred, but the most usual dimensions are from one hundred and fifty to four hundred acres. For a _multum in parvo_ of beautiful park scenery the traveler in search of these charming specimens of the picturesque may be advised to take a tour in Herefordshire and Worcestershire; and if he be a horseman he will do well to ride through the country. "Anyone," says Mr. Shirley, "who ascends the steep crest of the Malvern Hills in Worcestershire, and looks down from the summit of the ridge on the western side of the hills upon the richly wooded and beautifully undulating country which lies stretched beneath as far as the mountains of South Wales, would at once be struck with the 'bosky' nature of the scenery, and its perfect adaptation for the formation of deer-parks and sylvan residences."

Grimsthorpe, Lady Aveland's (inherited from the dukes of Ancaster, extinct); Thoresby, Earl Manvers's, formerly the duke of Kingston's, father of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu; and Knowsley, Lord Derby's, are also very large parks.

A writer on Grimsthorpe in 1774 says: "On a former visit I was told that the park was sixteen miles and three quarters in circumference, and esteemed the largest in England: since then it has, nevertheless, been somewhat enlarged, but different spots in it are cultivated."

A few parks have been created and others restocked during the present century. In Norfolk, Lord Kimberley, the present secretary of state for the colonies, has restored the deer which were removed during the present century, saying, it is reported, that "a place is not a place without deer"--a sentiment shared by many of his countrymen regarding an ancient grand-seigneur home. In the same county a new park has been created at Sandringham, the seat of the prince of Wales, the deer having been brought from Windsor. Sandringham Park and Woods were half a century ago a sandy waste, but fell into judicious hands and were admirably planted. The modern history of the place is remarkable. Toward the close of the century it became the property of a French refugee, Mr. Matou. This gentleman having been driven from his native country by the Revolution, conceived somehow the idea of importing from Sicily immense quantities of rabbit skins, which were used for making hats of a cheap kind which passed for beaver. In this way he acquired a large fortune. In England he mixed in the best society, and became very intimate with Earl Cowper, first husband of the well-known Lady Palmerston, and at his death bequeathed Sandringham to the Honorable Spencer Cowper, that nobleman's younger son, who married Lady Blessington's stepdaughter, Lady Harriet Gardiner, after her divorce from Count d'Orsay. When the prince of Wales was casting round for a country-seat, Sandringham was selected. Lord Palmerston was then in office, and some ill-natured things were said as to the sale of his stepson's place having been a much better thing for Mr. Cowper than for the prince of Wales. Vast sums have since been spent here.

Where a deer-park has long existed on his paternal estate, it goes to an Englishman's heart to give it up. An incident in point occurred about twenty years ago. In a secluded part of Devonshire, approached by the narrow, high-hedged, tortuous lanes characteristic of that part of the country, stands a magnificent old Tudor mansion known as Great Fulford Hall. Here for upward of six hundred years have been seated the Fulfords, a family of Saxon origin, the rivals of the Tichbornes in antiquity. The mansion of Fulford was garrisoned by Charles I., and taken by a detachment of Cromwell's army in 1645. The marks they left behind them may be seen to this day. The Fulfords have supporters to their arms, a very rare circumstance in the case of commoners. These supporters are two Saracens, and were granted in consideration of services in the Crusades. "Sir Baldwin de Fulford fought a combat with a Saracen, for bulk and bigness an unequal match (as the representation of him cut in the wainscot at Fulford doth plainly shew), whom yet he vanquished, and rescued a lady." This gentleman's granddaughter was the mother of Henry VIII.'s favorite, Russell, first earl of Bedford, and the Fulfords are connected with a hundred other ancient and honorable houses. But for a long time the heads of the house have failed "to marry money;" and when this happens for two or three generations in the case of a country gentleman with a large family to portion off, the result must usually be impecuniosity. Thus, when the late Mr. Fulford succeeded to the family property in 1847, he found himself the owner of a majestic old dilapidated mansion, surrounded by a deer-park, which had been gradually growing less until the portion of the park devoted to this purpose was little more than a big field.

Like his ancestor in the time of "the troubles," Mr. Baldwin Fulford was a Conservative, and had been very useful to his party. It was intended, therefore, to reward his services when the time came by a county office, which would have placed him at ease pecuniarily. When this office fell vacant the Tories were "in," and all seemed secure for Mr. Fulford's interest. But there's many a slip 'twixt cup and lip. A gentleman applied to the prime minister for the place for a friend of his, whose services to the party he duly dilated on. "I understood," said his lordship, "that Mr. Fulford's claims are considered paramount." "Mr. Fulford!" was the rejoinder. "I scarcely thought that such a place as this would be an object to Mr. Fulford--a gentleman of great position, with a deer-park and all that sort of thing." "A deer-park! You surprise me. I understood that Mr. Fulford's circumstances were extremely reduced. This alters the matter." Unfortunately, the, minister committed himself too far to draw back before making inquiries, when he learned that a deer-park having existed at Fulford for some four or five centuries, its owner had kept as a memento of grand old days a little remnant of the herd in a paddock, as before mentioned. He never recovered the blow of this disappointment. The heir to the property is, we believe, a son of the late bishop of Montreal. The family motto is "Bear up"--one eminently suited to its present condition, and we may hope that it will be followed so successfully that this ancient stock, which has held for so long a high place among the worthies of Devon, may once more win the smiles of Fortune.

Many of the most picturesque parks are but little known, lying as they do remote from railway stations. Mr. Nesfield, the great landscape-gardener, considers that Longleat, the marquis of Bath's, near Warminster, has greater natural advantages than any park in England, and that these have been made the most of.

Lord Stamford's park of Bradgate, in Leicestershire, is in the highest degree interesting. It is mostly covered with the common fern or brakes, and the projecting bare and abrupt rocks rising here and there, with a few gnarled and shivered oaks in the last stage of decay, present a scene of wildness and desolation in striking contrast to some of the beautiful adjoining valleys and fertile country.

Another gem of its kind is Ugbrook. This is situated a few miles from the Newton-Abbot station of the South Devon Railway, and lies in a rocky nook on the confines of Dartmoor. Macaulay, whose brother was vicar of the neighboring parish of Bovey-Tracey, knew it well, and tells us in his _History_ that Clifford (a member of the Cabal ministry) retired to the woods of Ugbrook. He was a lucky man to have such paternal acres to retire to, but probably the visitor to-day sees this park in a condition which Charles's minister would indeed have enjoyed. There is no place in England where a man may feel more grateful to those who have gone before him for their taste and forethought in creating a sylvan paradise. Although not very large, this park contains almost every variety of scenery. There is a grove gloomy from the heavy shadows of the magnificent trees which compose it, glorious avenues of lime and beech, and monarch-like trees, which, standing alone amid an expanse of sward, show to the fullest advantage their superb proportions. Entering the park on one side, the road winds beside a river, to which the bank gently slopes on the one hand, whilst on the other it rises precipitately, clad with the greenest foliage. An especial feature of this place is what is known as "the riding park," a stretch of smooth turf extending some miles, from which you may get a view over thirty miles, with the rocky heights of Dartmoor Forest, where the autumn manoeuvres take place this year, on the one hand, and the Haldon Hills on the other. This ancient heritage is still the property of the Cliffords, the present peer being eighth baron in direct descent from the lord treasurer. The Cliffords have always remained constant to the Roman Catholic faith, and a Catholic chapel adjoins the mansion.

A discriminating foreign tourist writes of Lord Hill's park, Hawkstone, in Shropshire, which, also lying rather off the beaten track, is comparatively little known: "I must in some respects give Hawkstone the preference over all I have seen. It is not art nor magnificence nor aristocratic splendor, but Nature alone to which it is indebted for this pre-eminence, and in such a degree that were I gifted with the power of adding to its beauty, I should ask, What can I add? Imagine a spot so commandingly placed that from its highest point you can let your eye wander over fifteen counties. Three sides of this wide panorama rise and fall in constant change of hill and dale like the waves of an agitated sea, and are bounded at the horizon by the strangely formed, jagged outline of the Welsh mountains, which at either end descend to a fertile plain shaded by thousands of lofty trees, and in the obscure distance, where it blends with the sky, is edged with a white misty line--the Atlantic Ocean."

Moor Park, in Hertfordshire, is remarkable for the following tradition concerning it: In Charles II.'s reign it was bought by the duke of Monmouth, whose widow--she who

In pride of youth, in beauty's bloom,
Had wept o'er Monmouth's bloody tomb--

is said to have ordered the heads of the trees in the park to be cut off on being informed of her husband's execution. This tradition is strengthened by the condition of many of the oaks here, which are decayed from the top. The duchess sold the place in 1720, thirty-five years after the duke's death. This is the Moor Park of apricot fame, but not the one where Sir William Temple lived when Swift was his secretary.

Most of the oldest and finest trees in England are naturally to be found in the deer-parks. At Woburn, the duke of Bedford's, is the largest ash--ninety feet high and twenty-three feet six inches in circumference at the base. The Abbot's Oak, on which the last abbot was hung, stands, or lately stood, here. It is remarkable that oaks are more often struck by lightning than any other trees. At Tortworth, Lord Ducie's, in Gloucestershire, is a chestnut asserted to have been a boundary tree in the time of King John. So late as 1788 it produced great quantities of chestnuts. At five feet from the ground this tree measured fifty feet in circumference.

The lover of fine trees should wander through the glades of Lord Leigh's park at Stoneleigh, in Warwickshire, where tall and shapely oaks grow with such symmetry that you do not guess their size, and are surprised to discover on measuring them how great it is.

Oh, how I love these solitudes
And places silent as the night--
There where no thronging multitudes
Disturb with noise their sweet delight!
Oh, how mine eyes are pleased to see
Oaks that such spreading branches bear,
Which, from old Time's nativity,
And th' envy of so many years,
Are still green, beautiful and fair
As at the world's first day they were!

Writing of the confines of the ancient forest of Sherwood, Mr. Howitt says of those sylvan delights: "The great woods have fallen under the axe, and repeated enclosures have reduced the open forests, but at the Clipstone end still remains a remnant of its ancient woodlands, unrifled except of deer--a specimen of what the whole once was, and a specimen of consummate beauty and interest. The part called Bilhaghe is a forest of oaks, and is clothed with the most impressive aspect of age that can be presented to the eye in these kingdoms. Stonehenge does not give you a feeling of greater eld, because it is not composed of a material so easily acted on by the elements. But the hand of Time has been on these woods, and has stamped them with a most imposing character. The tempests, lightnings, winds and wintry violence of a thousand years have flung their force on these trees, and there they stand, trunk after trunk, scathed, hollow, gray, gnarled, stretching out their bare, sturdy arms, or their mingled foliage and ruin, a life in death. All is gray and old. The ground is gray beneath, the trees are gray with clinging lichens--the very heather and fern that spring beneath them have a character of the past. If you turn aside and step amongst them, your feet sink in a depth of moss and dry vegetation that is the growth of ages, or rather that ages have not been able to destroy. You stand and look round, and in the height of summer all is silent: it is like the fragment of a world worn out and forsaken. These were the trees under which King John pursued the red deer six hundred years ago, these were the oaks beneath which Robin Hood led up his bold band of outlaws.... Advance up this long avenue, which the noble owner of the forest tract has cut through it, and, looking right and left as you proceed, you will not be able long to refrain from turning into the tempting openings that present themselves. Enter which you please, you cannot be wrong. These winding tracks, just wide enough for a couple of people on horseback or in a pony phaeton, carpeted with a mossy turf which springs under your feet with a delicious elasticity, and closed in with shadowy trunks and flowery thickets--are they not lovely?"

In the time of Elizabeth the largest park in Warwickshire, and one of the very finest in England, was that which surrounded the castle rendered classic ground by the immortal limning of Scott--Kenilworth. In a survey taken in the time of James I. it is stated that "the circuit of the castle mannours, parks and chase lying round together contain at least nineteen or twenty miles in a pleasant country, the like both for strength, state and pleasure not being within the realme of England." Kenilworth came to an end in Cromwell's time, a period very unfavorable to these sylvan paradises. He had the park cut up and divided amongst various grantees. How much damage was done to the park interest by the civil wars the following extract from the Life of Margaret, duchess of Newcastle, attests: "Of eight parks which my lord had before the wars, there was but one left that was not quite destroyed--viz. Welbeck Park of about four miles compass; for my lord's brother, Sir Charles Cavendish, who bought out the life of my lord in that lordship, saved most part of it from being cut down; and in Blore Park there were some few deer left. The rest of the parks were totally defaced and destroyed, both wood, pales and deer; amongst which was also Clipston Park of seven miles compass, wherein my lord had taken much delight formerly, it being rich of wood, and containing the greatest and tallest timber trees of all the woods he shad; insomuch that only the pale-row was valued at two thousand pounds. It was watered by a pleasant river that runs through it, full of fish and otters; was well stocked with deer, full of hares, and had great store of partridges, poots, pheasants, etc., besides all sorts of water-fowl; so that this park afforded all manner of sports, for hunting, hawking, coursing, fishing, etc., for which my lord esteemed it very much. And although his patience and wisdom is such that I never perceived him sad or discontented for his own losses and misfortunes, yet when he beheld the ruins of that park I observed him troubled, though he did little express it, only saying he had been in hopes it would not have been so much defaced as he found it, there being not one timber tree in it left for shelter."

The number of deer-parks in Scotland and Ireland is small. The principal park in the former is that of the duke of Buccleuch at Dalkeith Palace, near Edinburgh. At Hamilton, belonging to the duke of that ilk, are wild cattle similar to those at Chillingham.

A wonderfully picturesque Irish park is Rockingham, the Hon. L. King Harinan's, in the county Roscommon. The traveler will observe this beautiful and very extensive demesne as he goes from Boyle to Sligo. It is at the foot of the Curlew Mountains, and contains a magnificent sheet of water surrounding an island on which stands an ancient castle, still inhabitable. At Strokestown, in the same county, is a small park, where Mr. Mahon, its former owner, planted many years ago all sorts of forest trees, to see how far the deer would eat them: the only tree they entirely avoided was the beech.

There is nothing grander in the three kingdoms than Lord Waterford's seat, Curraghmore. Taken with the adjoining woods, the demesne contains five thousand acres. The special feature of this superb place is grandeur; "not that arising from the costly and laborious exertions of man, but rather the magnificence of Nature. The beauty of the situation consists in the lofty hills, rich vales and almost impenetrable woods, which deceive the eye and give the idea of boundless forests. The variety of the scenery is calculated to please in the highest degree, and to gratify every taste."

At Lyme Park, the splendid old seat of the Leghs in Cheshire, "a very remarkable custom," says Lysons, "of driving the red deer, which has not been practiced in any other park, either in England or abroad, was established about a century ago by an old park-keeper, who occupied that position for seventy years, dying at over one hundred years of age. It was his custom in May and June, when the animals' horns were tender, to go on horseback, with a rod in his hand, round the hills of this extensive park, and, having collected the deer, to drive them before him like a herd of common horned cattle, sometimes even opening a gate for them to pass through. When they came to a place before the hall called the Deer-Clod, they would stand in a collected body as long as the spectators thought fit; the young ones following their dams, and the old stags rising one against another and combating with their fore feet, not daring at this season of the year to make use of their horns. At the command of the keeper they would then move forward to a large piece of water and swim through the whole length of it, after which they were allowed to disperse."

Following the example of the abbots, many of the bishops formerly had deer-parks, and up to 1831 the bishop of Durham, a prince-palatine in his diocese, had a park at his country-seat, still his residence, Bishops-Auckland; but now the only prelate enjoying this distinction is the bishop of Winchester, at Farnham Castle, in Hampshire.

"There are some," says a writer in an early number of the _Westminster Review_, "who enclose immense possessions with walls and gates, and employ keepers with guns to guard every avenue to the vast solitudes by which they choose to be surrounded. Let such men pitch their tents in the deserts of Sahara or the wild prairies of America. What business have they here in the midst of a civilized community, linked together by chains of mutual obligation and dependence?" These observations apply to few private parks now-a-days. Permission to drive, ride or walk through them is rarely refused. Almost the only cases where there is much strictness in this respect are those of parks situated near a great watering place, such as Brighton or Tonbridge Wells. Thus, at the former, Lord Chichester's rule is that all persons on horseback or in carriages may pass through his ground, but foot-passengers are not allowed. The late Lord Abergavenny, a man of very shy and retiring disposition, was the least liberal park-owner in England. The gates of his superb demesne of Eridge very rarely revolved on their hinges; and this was the more remarkable, inasmuch as he did not reside there more than three months in the year. The story was told that at his accession to the property he had been more liberal, but that one day he was seated at luncheon alone when, suddenly looking up, he observed to his horror three proletarians flattening their noses against the window-pane, and gaping with exasperating interest at the august spectacle of a live lord at luncheon. To pull the bell and issue an order for the immediate removal of the intruders was, in the graphic language of the dime novel, the work of a moment; and from that hour the gates of Eridge were so rigorously sealed that it was often a matter of difficulty even for invited guests to obtain admittance.

It may seem very ill-natured sometimes to refuse admittance on easy terms to such places, and to act apparently in a sort of dog-in-the-manger spirit. But it should be borne in mind that the privilege when accorded has not unfrequently been abused, more especially by the "lower middle class" of the English people, whose manners are often very intrusive. Such persons will approach close to the house, peer into the windows of private apartments, or push in amongst the family and guests while engaged in croquet or other out-door amusements. Another common offence is leaving a disgusting _débris_ lying about after a picnic in grounds which it costs the owners thousands of pounds yearly to keep in order. The sentiment from which such places are kept up is not that of vulgar display. They are hallowed by associations which are well depicted by the late Lord Lytton in an eloquent passage in _Earnest Maltravers_:

"It is a wild and weird scene, one of those noble English parks at midnight, with its rough forest-ground broken into dell and valley, its never-innovated and mossy grass overrun with fern, and its immemorial trees, that have looked upon the birth, and look yet upon the graves, of a hundred generations. Such spots are the last proud and melancholy trace of Norman knighthood and old romance left to the laughing landscapes of cultivated England. They always throw something of shadow and solemn gloom upon minds that feel their associations, like that which belongs to some ancient and holy edifice. They are the cathedral aisles of Nature, with their darkened vistas, and columned trunks, and arches of mighty foliage. But in ordinary times the gloom is pleasing, and more delightful than all the cheerful lawns and sunny slopes of the modern taste."

REGINALD WYNFORD.