history of the Essays. He has collected much information concerning the sources of Bacon's quotations and his manner of quoting. In the ten original Essays there are but three quotations, all of which are proverbs. Many quotations were inserted in the edition of 1612, and a yet larger number in that of 1625. Strict verbal accuracy is found in very few of Bacon's quotations, a fact which is alluded to by Dr. Rawley, who says,

'I have often observed that if perchance in conversation an opportunity occurred of quoting another person's opinion, by the power with which his mind was gifted he brought it forth arrayed in new and better dress, so that the author himself would see that his own opinion was more elegantly expressed, and yet not the least injured in meaning or matter.'

Bacon quoted most frequently from the Bible and from the Latin writers, especially Tacitus, Lucretius, and Cicero. In the third edition of the Essays are forty-nine quotations from the Bible, of which fifteen are from the books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes and twenty from the New Testament. The greater number of the quotations do not correspond with any printed texts; and it is probable that in these instances, as in many others, Bacon quoted from memory. In some cases he may have himself translated from the Latin of the Vulgate; for his English quotations generally resemble the Rhemish version more nearly than any other.

Bacon repeated favourite quotations or illustrations in many of his works, sometimes using them more than once in the same tract or book. The fable of Atalanta and the golden apples, which is related and explained in the Wisdom of the Ancients,' is used also in the Advancement of Learning,' twice in the first book of the Novum Organum,' twice in the tract on the 'Interpretation of Nature,' and in several other places. In the EssayOf the Unity of the Church,' Bacon quotes from St. Bernard the expression, 'In veste ecclesiæ varietas sit, scissura non sit.' Mr. Wright enumerates seven other instances in which this quotation is used or alluded to, and there are two or three more not mentioned by him.

For the Essays, as we have already said, Francis Bacon gathered from his other works his wisest thoughts and happiest illustrations. In them he displays a keenness and accuracy of observation, a soundness of judgment, equalling and very frequently surpassing that shown in his philosophical works. For although upon his natural philosophy the fame of this great 'prince of knowledge' is chiefly based, his political and moral observations and speculations are marked by little or none of that credulity, inconsiderateness, and hastiness of conclusion,

which render worthless the 'Centuries of Natural History,' and make the second book of the Novum Organum' a piece of ingenious trifling. It is the union in himself of the active and the contemplative life which gives to Francis Bacon a position singular and unrivalled among the most illustrious philosophers. Aristotle had laboured before him in the collection of materials for a great natural history. Plato had reasoned inductively of the functions of the mind. Schoolmen had taught that the foundations of knowledge must be laid by investigation and experiment. The monk, his namesake, had striven to purge the human mind from the illusions of the market-place, and to deliver it from the stumbling-blocks of habit. Francis Bacon alone, pursuing these studies in hours stolen from the wrangle of the law and the toils of statecraft, attained an excellency for which many who gave to them an entire devotion never dared to hope, and at the same time spoke and wrote of the work of daily life, the business of the market and the shop, the passions and joys of common men, with as much shrewdness and precision as if his only book had been a ledger and his heart had never wandered out of the round of ordinary duties.

ART. V.-The New Forest; its History and its Scenery. By JOHN R. WISE. With 63 Illustrations, Drawn by WATER CRANE, Engraved by W. J. LINTON. Smith, Elder, & Co.

FEW lovers of natural scenery can, we think, range our picturesque forest glades, and mark the magic play of light and shade along the green alleys, the rich tree masses, so exquisite in their blended colouring, and the soft outline of the distant hills glowing with the ruby and amethyst of the blossoming heather, but must feel themselves veritable descendants of our forefathers, to whom the 'good greenwood' was the spot where their imaginations most delighted to dwell, and around which their brightest associations ever clustered. The 'fayre forest,' the 'merry greenwood,' the 'wodes that joye it is to see'-how did our fathers revel amid thoughts of these bright sunny glades, these fair leafy coverts, where the tall stag sought refuge from the hunter, even as the bold yeoman sought shelter from Norman tyranny; that wide expanse of hill and dale, and thick woodland, where all was beauty, and joyaunce, and freedom.

A very pleasant book, throwing light upon numerous portions of our early history too, would a general history of our forests, together with their legends, their traditions, their ancient usages,

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be. Perhaps it is almost too late to expect this; for our forests are well-nigh swept away, and many a wild legend, many a timehallowed tradition, well worthy a place in our 'folk-lore,' has been also swept away with the ancient trees. We were therefore well pleased to see the announcement of the work before us, since it proved that some attention was being paid to this subject; and although the New Forest, especially as to its later history, offers fewer points of interest than almost any other, still, as the locality is believed to exhibit such unquestionable proofs of the Conqueror's cruel tyranny, and is the spot where two of his sons -tradition reports, also a grandson-lost their lives, it has a certain claim on our notice. The present work, however, may be rather considered as a very full and complete description of the New Forest than a history of it: we will therefore rather treat the subject historically, especially with respect to the two incidents by which it has become so well known among us.

While the origin of all our other forests is lost in the obscurity of pre-historic times, the story of the New Forest has been handed down among us as a household word through almost eight hundred years; and men to whom the history of their own country was well-nigh a blank, have learnt from it to abhor the memory of the pitiless Conqueror, who swept away fruitful fields, flourishing villages, even parish churches, to make a wide enclosure, more than thirty miles in length, for those 'tall deer,' whom, as the Saxon Chronicle so naïvely remarks, he loved as though he had 'been their father.' This account is not only handed down by tradition, but is recorded by numerous chroniclers, whose testimony in other cases is trustworthy-two of whom, too, were contemporary, or nearly so-and the tale is besides true to the character of the monarch, who was alike distinguished for his keen love of field sports and for his stern and cruel disposition. Still there are difficulties in the commonly received tradition which it would be as well to inquire into.

The generally received account is, that the Conqueror laid waste and depopulated the whole tract of land to which the name of the New Forest has been given. Now, that the stern and vindictive ruler who devastated the wide district between the Tyne and the Humber, lest the Danes should effect a landing, would have been withheld by any gentle or conscientious feeling from laying waste for his own pleasure a much narrower spot, cannot be believed. Yet, that at a period when nearly threefourths of the country lay uncultivated, when forests, abounding in game, encroached almost to the gates of the walled towns, a monarch should destroy fields and villages for the purpose of planting trees under whose shadow he could never hope to

Enclosure of New Forest-The Conqueror-Canute.

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stand, of forming a chase where he could never pursue his sport, seems almost an act of wanton insanity, rather than the deed of a ruler who, cruel, rapacious, tyrannical though he were, was yet the most distinguished among the princes of his age for his astute and vigorous policy, and who in his municipal enactments and in his Doomsday Book has given such unquestionable proofs of clear-headedness.

Now it is remarkable that while the Latin chroniclers have duly recorded this 'afforestation,' the venerable Saxon Chronicle, the most trustworthy of all, never mentions aught about it. The earliest Latin chronicler, too, who refers to it-Jumieges, the Conqueror's chaplain-while he speaks of his having destroyed many villages and churches, says nothing about making the New Forest, but expressly states, 'in enlarging it' (amplificandam). Now in Doomsday Book we have evidence that a great portion of this district formed part of the royal demesnes even in the time of Edward the Confessor. And looking to the beginning of the century, we find Edward's predecessor Canute, a keen hunter, residing chiefly at Winchester, and from thence dating the curious charter, which proves that forest laws-laws scarcely less severe than those of our Norman sovereigns-were well known full sixty years before the time that William is said to have so cruelly laid waste this locality.* Winchester, indeed, was the favourite city of Canute; and when we find him here enacting his code of forest laws, we cannot but think that this district, or a great part of it, was really afforested by him. Canute, like all

* It is to be regretted that Mr. Wise, in a work expressly devoted to the New Forest, should have merely incidentally alluded to this very interesting and suggestive document, especially as it would have afforded information perfectly new to nineteen out of twenty of his readers. Few are aware that by the provisions of Canute's charter, dated 1019, the tall deer,' but especially the royal stag, was viewed as deserving kingly protection even more than the Christian man. Thus, 'if any freeman, casually or wilfully, hunt a beast of the forest, so that for swift'ness of the course the beast doth pant for breath, he shall forfeit 10s. to the 'King; if not a freeman he shall pay double; if a bondsman, in his skin' (we should think scourging is here meant). If 'a royal beast' (this was the stately fullantlered stag) was thus treated as to pant for breath,' the penalties were, for the freeman imprisonment for a year, for the next imprisonment for two years, while if the offender were a bondsman he shall be reckoned an outlaw.' For the killing 'a royal beast' the freeman 'shall lose his were, he who is not free his freedom, and 'the bondsman his life.' Truly Norman William should not bear all the obloquy of the forest laws. It seems strange how so cruel a code of laws should ever have received the name of a charter; but Canute, in his preamble, expressly declares that he makes 'these constitutions of the forests by advice of my nobility, 'that both peace and justice may be done to all the churches of our kingdom, and 'that every offender may suffer according to his quality and manner of offence.' It seems therefore as though there had been some earlier forest laws of even greater severity; for throughout this charter the enactments are evidently viewed as remedial. It may, however, at least be pleaded, that whatever its defects each crime and its penalty is specifically stated, while under the Saxon kings punishment probably depended on the mere will of the chief huntsman.

the Scandinavian race, was a mighty hunter; and it seems very unlikely that he should choose for his favourite residence a city where no facilities for field sports could be enjoyed. In this case the title New Forest would most appropriately be given, and this, of course, would still be its title when William the Norman succeeded to the ownership both of the forest and the realm.

That William, however, was guilty of gross cruelty and injustice with respect to some of the inhabitants of the New Forest, we cannot but believe; for although tradition may alter and exaggerate, it certainly never invents; and although the monkish historians are frequently inaccurate, recent historical inquiries have largely verified their general correctness. The forcible ejectment of families whose forefathers had dwelt for generations on the Forest; the seizing wide tracts of common land, a most unpardonable offence in the eyes of the Saxon, who viewed the mark' almost as a sacred inheritance-such were probably the crimes of William, and what he would be most likely to commit if he enlarged the boundaries of the New Forest; but that he destroyed villages, and razed parish churches to the ground, is utterly disproved by Doomsday Book, which gives the names of hamlets and villages, mills and salt-works, within its bounds, stating, in many instances, the amount of rents which had been paid by the occupiers in the time of the Confessor, and the names of the occupiers too. Mr. Wise truly says, most people have a very incorrect view of the old royal forests, taking their notion, we think, from a modern park. But the forest, according to the venerable authority of Manwood, was 'a certain territorie of woody grounds and fruitful pastures,' extending, as in some of our northern forests, over the greater part of a county, and containing a population scanty and poor indeed, but still, on the whole, gaining a comfortable subsistence. While Doomsday Book affords such unquestionable evidence that the popular tale is a myth, the testimony of remains dug up in the Forest proves further that the hand of violence was never there. Keltic barrows, containing urns of the rudest and slightest construction, have been left undisturbed for the explorers of modern days; the site of the Roman potteries is still marked by heaps of broken flasks and drinking-cups, untouched through fourteen or fifteen centuries; while churches, with Norman arch and pillar, in the very heart of the Forest, add their unquestionable evidence to the fact that the New Forest in its general features was the same in the days of the Conqueror as in the earlier days of Roman and even Keltic occupancy. Even to this evidence may be added geolo