they saw to hold their daily trade,
Where they in summer wont to sport them in the shade.
"Could we," say they, "suppose that any would us cherish
Which suffer every day the holiest things to perish?
Or to our daily want to minister supply?
These iron times breed none that mind posterity.
'Tis but in vain to tell what we before have been,
Or changes of the world that we in time have seen;
When, now devising how to spend our wealth with waste,
We to the savage swine let fall our larding mast,
But now, alas! ourselves we have not to sustain,
Nor can our tops suffice to shield our roots from rain.
Jove's oak, the warlike ash, veined elm, the softer beech,
Short hazel, maple plain, light asp, the bending wych,
Tough holly, and smooth birch, must altogether burn;
What should the builder serve, supplies the forger's turn,
When under public good, base private gain takes hold,
And we, poor woful woods, to ruin lastly sold."

[Sidenote: GREAT GUNS]

We shall learn later more of this old Sussex industry, but here, in the
heart of St. Leonard's Forest, I might quote also what another old
author, with less invention, says of it. Under the heading of Sussex
manufactures, Thomas Fuller writes, in the _Worthies_, of great guns:--

"It is almost incredible how many are made of the Iron in this
County. Count _Gondomer_ well knew their goodness, when of King
James he so often begg'd the boon to transport them. A Monke of
Mentz (some three hundred years since) is generally reputed the
first Founder of them. Surely _ingenuity_ may seem _transpos'd_, and
to have _cross'd her hands_, when about the same time a Souldier
found out Printing; and it is questionable which of the two
Inventions hath done more good, or more harm. As for Guns, it cannot
be denied, that though most behold them as _Instruments of cruelty_;
partly, because subjecting _valour_ to _chance_; partly, because
_Guns give no quarter_ (which the Sword sometimes doth); yet it will
appear that, since their invention, Victory hath not stood so long a
Neuter, and hath been determined with the loss of fewer lives. Yet
do I not believe what Souldiers commonly say, 'that _he was curs'd
in his Mother's belly, who is kill'd with a Cannon_,' seeing many
prime persons have been slain thereby."

[Sidenote: SUSSEX IRON WORKS]

Canno