John Richard de Capel Wise

“ It is only by seeing some such grey ruins as these, still breathing of a long past religion, placed amongst the solitude of their own green meadows and woods, by the silent lapse of some stream flowing and ebbing with every tide, that we can at all understand the meaning of a life of contemplation, and its true value. Along these cloisters paced the brethren, their eyes bent on the earth, their thoughts on heaven. Here tolled the great abbey-bell, its sound, full of solemn sweetness, borne not only over the lonely Forest, but down the river seaward to the tossing sailor. ”

“ The holly, too, grows everywhere in massy clumps. In the spring, the wild crab (Pyrus Malus) crimsons the thickets of Brockenhurst, in the autumn the maple. The butcher's broom stands at the foot of each beech, and the ivy twines its great coil round each oak, and the mistletoe finds its home on the white poplar.
After all, the trees, and not the flowers, give its character to the New Forest. In the spring, all its woods are dappled with lights and shades, with the amber of the oak and the delicate soft-gleaming green of the birch and beech. ”

“ As a temple for man, have they not been so since the world began? Taught by their tender beauty, and subdued by their solemn gloom, the imaginative Greek well consecrated each grove and wood to some Divinity. The early Christians fled to "the armour of the house of the Forest," to escape to peace and quietness. Here the old Gothic builders first learnt how to rear their vaulted arches, and to wreathe their pillars with stone arabesques of leaves and flowers, in faint imitation of a beauty they might feel, but never reach. ”

“ Here a stray deer will bound across the road; and sometimes a small herd of as many as six or seven are browsing on the ivy clinging to some tree just felled, startled at the slightest sound, and trooping off down the glades. The grey hen rises up at our feet from the heather; and, as we enter the wood, the woodpecker shrieks out his shrill laugh, whilst a buzzard is heavily sailing over the trees.
The road winds on through the valley amongst oaks flecked with silver flakes of moss, broken here and there by open glades and green spaces of fern. ”

“ The world is another place to the man who knows, and to the man who is ignorant of Natural History. To the one the earth is full of a thousand significations, to the other meaningless.
First of all, then, for a few words on the geology of the Forest; for upon this everything depends—not only the scenery, but its Flora and Fauna, the growth of its trees and the course of its streams. Throughout it is composed of the Middle-Eocene, the Osborne and Headon Beds capping the central portion, with their fluvio-marine formation. ”

“ Instead of lanes and cultivated fields, the shingly beach of the Solent, covered in places to the water's edge with woods, sweeps away to the west. Passing on to Eagle-hurst, and noticing the truth of the termination even to this day, let us sit down on the shore. Here is a view which should be remembered. In one sense the world cannot show its equal. Far away to the east stretches the low Hampshire coast, ended by the harbour of Portsmouth and its bare forest of masts. ”

“ All these woods there are for rambles, flushed in the spring with wood-anemones and wood-sorrel, set in the green moss and the greener heather of the bilberry. Nowhere, too, in the Forest, than in these woods, have I seen more lovely sunsets. Through some deep-cut oriel of the trees have I watched the sun begin to sink, each moment burning brighter, and then suddenly its great brand of fire would fall, reddening each tree trunk, and crimson billows of clouds come rolling eastward. ”

“ Throughout the West of England still linger some few stray waifs and legends of the past. In the New Forest Sir Bevis of Southampton is no mythical personage, and the peasant will tell how the Knight used to take his afternoon's walk, across the Solent, from Leap to the Island.
Here in the Forest still dwell fairies. The mischievous sprite, Laurence, still holds men by his spell and makes them idle. If a peasant is lazy, it is proverbially said, "Laurence has got upon him," or, "He has got a touch of Laurence." He is still regarded with awe, and barrows are called after him. ”

“ Returning, however, to Beaulieu, let us once more look at the old abbey and the ruins of the cloisters, and try to imagine for ourselves the time when, secluded from the world, in the midst of the New Forest, the monks from Citeaux prayed and worked, clad in their coarse white woollen robes, and slept, according to their vow, on pallets of straw, giving shelter to the fugitive, and food to the hungry. ”

“ Then, as you climb up to the down, on the opposite side, stretches a view, hard to be matched in England either for extent or beauty. On one side rolls the English Channel, indenting the shore with its deep bay as far as the land-locked harbour of Christchurch, shut in by Hengistbury Head and the white Swanage rocks; and, on the other, it sweeps away by the long beach of Hurst and its round gray castle. Opposite, glitter the coloured sands and chalk cliffs of Alum Bay, and the white Needle Rocks running wedge-shaped into the sea. ”

“ Down in the valley, hid from us by a turn in the road, lies Beaulieu. But a little farther on we reach part of the old Abbey walls, broken here and there, clustered with ivy, and grass, and yellow mullein, and white yarrow, whilst vine-clad cottages stand against its sides. The village is situated on a bend of the Exe, where, spanned by a bridge, the stream falls over the weir, formerly turning the old mill-wheel of the monks, and then, broadening with the tide, winds through meadows and thick oak copses down to the Solent. ”

“ We do not see the forest of our forefathers. Go back eight centuries, and look at the sights which the Normans must have beheld,—dense underwoods of hollies on which the red deer browsed; masses of beech and chestnut, the haunts of the wolf and the boar ”

“ An uninterrupted path runs, for some three or four miles, along the top of the cliff—the scene constantly changing in its beauty. Below hangs a broken under-cliff, shelving down to the sea, strewed here and there with blocks of gravel, the grass and furze growing on them just as they fell. On the shore stretch long reaches of yellow sand, separated by narrow strips of pebbles, and patches of dark green Barton clay, embossed with shells, and studded with sharks' teeth. ”

“ I say, too, this, strange as it may doubtless appear, that Government, whenever it fells any timber, should spare some of the finest trees for the sake of their beauty, and for the delight they will give to future generations. Cut down, and sawn into planks, they are worth but so many pounds. Standing, their value is inappreciable. We have Government Schools of Design, and Government Picture Galleries, but they are useless without Nature to assist the student. Government, by keeping here some few old trees, will do more to foster true Art than all the grants of Parliament. ”

“ There, in the long aisles, settles that depth of shade which no pencil can give, and that colouring which no canvas can retain, as the sunlight pierces through the green web of leaves, flinging, as it sets, a crown of gold round each tree-trunk.
Let no one, however, think they know anything of the Forest by simply keeping to the high road and the beaten tracks. ”

“ Then, when the summer comes, and the woods are green and dark, the honey-buzzard skims round the tops of the trees; and the snipe, whose young have not yet left the swamps, goes circling high up in the air, "bleating," as the common people here call the noise of its wings, each time it descends in its waving, wandering flight; whilst out on the open spaces the whinchat, known throughout the Forest, from its cry, as the "furze hacker," jerks itself from one furze branch to another ”

“ Consider, too, Nature's own love and tenderness for her trees,—how, when they have grown old and are going to decay, she clothes them with fresh beauty, hides their deformities with a soft green veil of moss and the grey dyes of lichens, and, not even content with this, makes them the support for still greater loveliness—drapes them with masses of ivy, and hangs upon them the tresses of the woodbine, loading them to the end of their days with sweetness and beauty. ”

“ On the sea-coast near Milton, rise high gravel-capped cliffs, with a basis of Barton clays, cleft by deep ravines, locally known as "bunnies." Inland, valleys open out, dipping between low hills, whilst masses of beech and oak darken the plains. Here and there, marking the swamps, wave white patches of cotton-grass, whilst round them, on the uplands, spread long, unbroken stretches of purple heather; and wide spaces of fern, an English Brabant, studded with hollies and yews, some of them as old as the Conquest. ”

“ The eagle and kite are, to all purpose, extinct, in England, and the peregrine and honey-buzzard will soon share their fate. The sight of a large bird now calls out all the raffish guns of a country-side. Ornithologists have, however, themselves to thank. With some honourable exceptions, I know no one so greedy as a true ornithologist. The botanist does not uproot every new flower which he discovers, but—for he loves them too well—carefully spares some plants to grow and increase; whilst few ornithologists rest content till they see the specimen safe in their cabinets. ”

“ The tutsan (Androsæmum) is so common round Wootton that it is known to all the children as "touchen leaves," evidently only a corruption of its name; and its berries are believed throughout the Forest to be stained with the blood of the Danes. The rarer large-flowered (calycinum) grows, though not, I am afraid, truly wild, in some of the thickets round Sway. In all the ponds, the marsh (elodes) springs up, whilst the creeping (humifusum) trails its blossoms over the turf of the Forest lanes, and the small (pulchrum) shows its orange-tipped flowers amongst the brambles and bushes. ”

“ Though, too, the sea-coast here, as there, is no longer in the Forest, yet if we miss this walk we shall lose some of the most beautiful scenery in the district.
As we leave Christchurch by the Lymington Road, Mudeford lies on the right, and Burton, with its Staple Cross, on the left. Few things are more touching than these old grey relics of the past, standing solitary in our cross-roads, the dial united with the Cross, to show both how short was man's life, and where lay his only salvation. ”

“ But, I believe, we may all gain some idea of the glory which each season brings—some glimpses of the heaven of beauty which ever surrounds us—if we will seek for them patiently and reverently. They cannot with some be learnt at once, but, in degrees, are attainable by all; but they are attainable only upon this one condition,—that we go to Nature with a docile, loving spirit, without which nothing can be learnt. If we go with any other feeling, we had much better stay in a town amidst the congenial smoke, than profane Nature with the pride of ignorance and the insolence of condescension. ”

“ Many people have a vague notion that the gipsies constitute the most important element of the population of the New Forest, whereas, of course, they are mere cyphers. An amusing enough French author, in a work upon England, has devoted a special chapter to the New Forest, and there paid more attention to the gipsies than any one else, and entirely forgets the West-Saxon, whose impress is indelibly marked, not only in the language, but in the names of every town, village, and field.
As, however, every one takes a romantic interest in these nomads, we must not entirely pass over them. ”

“ For the botanist, along the hedge banks, the blue and slate-coloured soapwort is growing throughout the summer and autumn, with purple cat-mint and wild clary. In the waste places the thorn-apple shows its white blossoms; whilst red stacks of fern and black turf ricks stand by every cottage door to remind us how close we are to the Forest. ”

“ Especially to its scenery I would call attention. This, above all, I wish to impress on the reader, seeing that beauty is one of the chief ends and aims of nature: and that the ground beneath our feet is decked with flowers, and the sky above our heads is painted with a thousand colours, to cheer man as he goes to his work in the morning, and to fill his heart with thankfulness as he returns at evening. ”

“ As we leave Brockenhurst we find ourselves more and more in the Forest. The road to Lyndhurst is one long avenue of trees—beeches with their smooth trunks, oaks growing in groups, with here and there long lawns stretching far away into distant woods. ”

“ They must go into it, across the fern and the heather, and, if necessary, over the swamps, into such old woods as Barrow's Moor, Mark Ash, Bushey Bratley, and Oakley, wandering at their own will among the trees. The best advice which I can give to see the Forest is to follow the course of one of its streams, to make it your friend and companion, and go whereever it goes. It will be sure to take you through the greenest valleys, and past the thickest woods, and under the largest trees. No step along with it is ever lost, for if never goes out of its way but in search of some fresh beauty. ”

“ I have endeavoured, whenever there was an opportunity, to point out the natural history of the Forest, feeling sure that, from a lack of this knowledge, so many miss the real charms of the country. "One green field is like another green field," cried Johnson. ”

“ Further, I need scarcely add that all sorts of schemes, from the day when Defoe proposed to colonize the district with the Palatine refugees from the Rhine to the present, have been suggested for reclaiming the Forest. None have ever, from the nature of the soil, been found to answer; and the present condition is certainly, for many reasons, the best. The time will some day arrive when, as England becomes more and more overcrowded,—as each heath and common are swallowed up,—the New Forest will be as much a necessity to the country as the parks are now to London. ”

“ If any one wishes to know the beauty of the Forest in autumn, let him see the view from the high ridge at Stoney-Cross. Here the air blows off the Wiltshire Downs finer and keener than anywhere else. Here, on all sides, stretch woods and moors. ”

“ We meet it every day in the common Forest proverb, "Like a swarm of bees all in a churm," whilst the fowlers on the coast talk also of the wild ducks "being in a churm," when they are in confusion, flapping their wings before they settle or rise. ”

“ Consider, too, the use which Nature makes of her woods, either softening the horrors of the precipice, or adorning spaces which else would be utterly without interest, or adding beauty to beauty. Consider, further, how she beguiles us when we are in them, leading us forward, each little rise appearing a hill, because we cannot see its full extent; how, too, the paths close behind us, shutting us out with their silent doorways from all noise and turmoil, whilst the soft green light fills every dim recess, and deepens each pillared aisle, the floor paved with the golden mosaic of the sunlight. ”

“ Who shot the fatal arrow we know not, and, perhaps, shall never know. We must not expect to get truth in history,—only, at the best, some faint glimmering. All is here confusion and darkness. John of Salisbury, who lived about the middle of the twelfth century, says it was as little known who killed the King as who slew Julian the Apostate. [26] The very spot where he fell is doubtful. One thing, however, seems certain, that he was slain, not, as the Chroniclers say, because his father made the New Forest, but through his own cruelties and excesses, by which he outraged both friend and foe. ”

“ Wootton, the Odetune of Domesday; Stockeyford and Stockleigh, the woody place; Ashley, the ash ground; besides Staneswood, Arnwood, and Testwood, all more or less afforested in Domesday, clearly show its character.
After all, the best evidence is not from such arguments, but in the simple fact that the New Forest remains still the New Forest. Had the land been in any way profitable, modern skill, and capital, and enterprise, would have certainly been attracted. But its charms lie not, and never did, in the richness of its soil, but in its deep woods and wild moors. ”