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." Ke