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