ABERGLAUBE. I KNOW of a noble lady Who has never lifted her veil; Her hand, on the aching temples, Is tender, and cool, and pale ; Her raiment is black and crimson, Her voice, which is seldom loud, Is drowned by a lover's whisper, But not by a surging crowd; And her speech, which is heard within us, And she calleth the things that are not Therefore her word is the pillar Of whatever standeth on earth, And if aught on earth be precious, Her sentence gives it worth. She is very staid in her going, As if she knew that haste Would scatter the manna, hidden, For wayfarers to taste. Yet whithersoever we hasten, And she walks where the ways are foulesi, I have told of her speech and her going; Of her deeds there is this to tell, She lifteth up to heaven, She casteth down to hell. On earth she layeth foundations, And others build thereupon; When they set the headstone with shoutings She is far away and gone. For her road is with them that labor, OLDEN TIMES AND PRESENT. ANCIENT days of chivalry, Singing lays 'neath lady's bower, Gone those days of pageantry, Race for wealth the keenest strife. THERE is a tender hue that tips the first young leaves of spring; A trembling beauty in their notes when young birds learn to sing; A purer look when first on earth the gushing brook appears; A liquid depth in infant eyes that fades with summer years. There is a rosy tint at dawn that flies the brighter day; A sound of innocence and joy when children shout at play; A laughing breeze at dewy morn that faints with sultry noon; A silver veil that softest hangs around the maiden moon. The scent that roses fully blown about their beauty fling Is sweet, but cannot with the breath of early buds compare; So doth there bloom a gentle love in life's en. chanted spring, That fills the breast with feelings age can never hope to share. Temple Bar. CECIL MAXWell Lyte From The Fortnightly Review. EPPING FOREST. BY ALFRED R. WALLACE. any OUR greatest legal authorities will not admit that the people of England have right whatever to enjoy the beautiful scenery of their native land, beyond such glimpses as may be obtained of it from highways and footpaths. Legally there is no such thing as a "common," answering to the popular idea of a tract of land over which anybody has a right to roam at will.* Every supposed common is said by the lawyers to belong absolutely to some body of individuals, to a lord or lords of the manor and the surrounding owners of land who have rights of common over it; and if these parties agree together, the said common may be enclosed, and the public shut out of it forever. The thousands of tourists who roam every summer over the healthy wastes of Surrey or the breezy downs of Sussex, who climb the peaks or revel on the heather-banks of Wales or Scotland, are every one of them trespassers in the eye of the law; and there is, perhaps, no portion of these favorite resorts of our country-loving people that it is not in the power of some individual or body of individuals to enclose and treat as private property. How far this legal assumption accords with justice or sound policy, it is not our purpose now to inquire; that question having been treated by many able pens, and being one which will assuredly not become less important or less open to discussion as time goes on. We have now a far pleasanter task, that of calling attention to one of our ancient woodland wastes, Epping Forest, which, in the words of an act of Parliament passed at the end of last session, is to be forever preserved as "an open space for the recreation and enjoyment of the public." Here at length every one will have a right to roam unmolested, and to enjoy the beauties which nature so lavishly spreads around when left to her own wild luxuriance. We * "Although the public have long wandered over the waste lands of Epping Forest without let or hindrance, we can find no legal right to such user established in law." (Preliminary Report of the Epping Forest Commissioners, 1875, p. 12.) 707 shall possess, close to our capital, one real forest, whose wildness and sylvan character is to be studiously maintained, and which will possess an ever-increasing interest as furnishing a sample of those broad tracts of woodland which once covered so much of our country, and which play so conspicuous a part in our early history and national folk-lore. Unfortunately the spoilers have been at work, and much of the area now dedicated to the people has been more or less denuded of its woodland covering and otherwise deteriorated. Before, however, we describe the present state of the forest, and discuss the important question of how best to restore its beauty and increase its interest, it will be well to give our readers some notion of its former extent and of the circumstances that have led to its pres ervation. It appears by the reports of the Epping Forest Commission (1875 and 1877) that in the reign of Charles I. the forest of Essex, or of Waltham, as it was then called, comprised the whole district between the rivers Lea and Roding, extending southward to Stratford Bridge, thus including the site of the great Stratford Junction Station, and northward to the village of Roydon, a distance in a straight line of sixteen miles. Much of this wide area was, however, even at that early date, only forest in a legal sense, for it included many towns and villages and much cultivated land, and these seem to have left the actual unenclosed forest not much larger than in the first half of the present century. We are told, for example, that during the two centuries from 1600 to 1800 only eighty acres of the forest were enclosed, and that even up to 1851 barely six hundred acres had been enclosed. The unenclosed forest at that date is estimated by the commissioners at fifty-nine hundred and twenty-eight acres. Then came the development of our railway system, and the discovery of Californian and Australian gold. The wealth of the country began to increase at an unprecedented rate; the growth of London became more rapid than ever, and its citizens more and more acquired the habit of residing in the country. Land everywhere rose in value, the wastes of Epping were temptingly near at | for this course was obviated by the liber hand, and illegal enclosures went on at such a pace that during the twenty years between 1851 and 1871 they amounted to almost exactly half the entire area, leaving only three thousand and one acres still open. This wholesale process of enclosure. which, if quietly submitted to, would soon have left nothing of Epping Forest but the name, roused the indignation of many who dwelt near the forest or felt an interest in it, and a powerful agitation was commenced, in which the corporation of the city of London and many members of the legislature took a prominent part. In 1871 the Epping Forest commissioners were appointed by act of Parliament, and they gave in their final report only in the spring of last year. But in the mean time a most important case had been decided in the courts. At the request of the corporation of London, which supplied all the necessary funds, the commissioners of sewers (as freeholders in the forest) commenced a suit in chancery against the lords of manors and persons to whom they had granted lands, claiming a right of common over all the waste lands of the forest, and that all enclosures made since 1851 should be declared illegal. The master of the rolls decided (on the 24th November, 1874) in favor of the plaintiffs, and against this decision the defendants did not appeal. It has therefore been made the basis of legislation in the act just passed, which declares, that the whole five thousand nine hundred and twenty-eight acres which the commissioners found to have been open waste of the forest in 1851 are to be treated as common lands, and (the lords of manors or their grantees being first duly compensated for their manorial rights and property in the soil) that the whole of this extensive area, with the exception of lands built upon before 1871, gardens, and pleasure-grounds, is to be preserved "uninclosed and unbuilt upon as an open space for the recreation and enjoyment of the public." Large sums of money were, however, required to buy up the manorial rights, and although this might possibly have been done by public subscription, the necessity ality and public spirit of the city of London, which offered to supply all the needful funds, not only for this purchase, but also for all work that might be found necessary for the preservation, management, and replanting of the forest. This munifi cent offer was accepted, and the very reasonable desire of the corporation to have the chief voice in the management of the newly acquired domain in trust for the public, was acceded to by the legislature ; and the act accordingly declares that Epping Forest is to be managed by a committee consisting of twelve members of the Corporation of London, and four verderers, chosen by the commoners of the twelve parishes in which the forest is situated. Let us now take a brief glance at the present state of the land thus dedicated to the public, before proceeding to discuss the question, how it may be made the most of. First, and nearest to London, we have the open expanse of Wanstead Flats, not half a mile from the Forest Gate Station of the Great Eastern Railway, and which, together with some illegally enclosed ground northwards towards the village of Wanstead, comprises an area of nearly five hundred acres. Crossing it from north to south opposite Lake House is an avenue of lime-trees, never very fine, and now rapidly dying from the combined effects of want of shelter and the smoky atmosphere. With this exception almost the whole of the flats is denuded of trees, and offers a drear expanse of wiry grass interspersed with a few tufts of broom, stretching for more than a mile in length and not far short of half a mile wide. On the northern side considerable excavations have been made for brickfields, and here, where the ground rises somewhat, there is a very nice turf, with fern, broom, and even heather, in considerable patches. Northwestward is a large piece of recov ered land, about fifty acres in extent, dotted over with oaks and bushes, and intersected by a fine double avenue of limes a third of a mile long, but many of the trees, in the part nearest London, are rapidly dying. Planes are probably the only trees which would now thrive well here. This is, on the whole, a rather | provement. To the west these fields are pretty piece of half-wild woodland, well bounded by Chingford Brook, by the side worth careful preservation for the use of the dense population surrounding it. To the west of Wanstead and Snaresbrook, and northward towards Woodford, is a fine expanse of unenclosed land, nearly a mile long, and from a quarter to half a mile wide; and when some illegal enclosures are thrown open, this will be continued uninterruptedly to Woodford Green. The southern portion of this tract between Wanstead Orphan Asylum and Whip's Cross has been utterly devastated by gravel-digging, the whole surface being a succession of pits and hollows with stagnant pools of water, and a few miserable oaks left standing on mounds where the gravel has been dug away around them. One would think that here the lords of the manors had infringed on the rights of the commoners, by destroying the pasture and even the surface soil on which any herbage can grow; and that in equity they should be called on to pay damages instead of receiving payment for their alleged property in the soil, which they have here succeeded in rendering almost wholly worthless either for use or enjoyment. Northwestward, towards Woodford Green, is a rather pretty piece of wild forest land, with open grassy glades, intervening thickets, and ponds swarming with interesting aquatic plants. There are, however, very few ornamental trees, the oaks being mostly small, with a quantity of miserable pollardbeeches hardly more sightly than so many mops. Passing Highham Park we come upon a large extent of illegally enclosed land, now to be thrown open, and much of it already given up. Between Woodford Green and Chingford Hatch there are about sixty acres of poor grass and fallow land adorned with a few bushes and one fine oak tree, but sloping gently towards the north-west, and with extensive views over the wooded country beyond. Further north there are more than a hundred acres of small enclosures - rough pasture, fallow land, or cultivated fields, dotted with a few poor trees, and at present far from picturesque, but with an undulating surface offering considerable opportunity for im of which are some very handsome willowtrees growing in stiff clay and indicating what this part of the land is adapted for. A little to the north-east is the new village of Buckhurst Hill, to the south-east of which is a fine piece of enclosed forest, about a hundred acres in extent and called the Lodge Bushes. We now enter the northern and grandest division of the forest, which stretches away for a distance of five miles from Queen Elizabeth's Lodge to near the town of Epping. North and west of the lodge are nearly three hundred acres of illegally enclosed fields, now dreary fallows and poor pastures, but with fine slopes affording opportunity for producing new effects of forest-scenery. To the west and south of Loughton village are more extensive enclosures of several hundred acres of land, much of it arable or pasture land of good quality; and further north, near Theydon Church and on towards Epping, are other enclosures of less extent, and almost all of this will again be thrown open to the forest. To the north of the road from Loughton to High Beech there is a vast extent of rough forest land, nearly three miles long and from half a mile to a mile wide, which has all been recovered after having been illegally enclosed by the lords of the manors, but not before they have denuded large portions of it of everything deserving the name of a tree, and left it a scrubby waste without any pretensions to sylvan beauty. Here are square miles of land, once as luxuriant as the unenclosed portions further west, but now presenting a hideous assemblage of stunted, mop-like pollards rising from a thicket of scrubby bushes. From this brief sketch of the present condition of Epping Forest, with more especial reference to the newly recovered portions of it, we find, that probably not much less than a thousand acres, which are now or have recently been enclosed and cultivated fields, will soon be thrown into the forest; while, in addition to this, there are considerably more than a thousand acres which are almost entirely The plan I have now to propose is very different from all these. It is one which would be perfectly novel, perfectly practicable, intensely interesting as a great arboricultural experiment, attractive alike to the uneducated and to the scientific, not more expensive than any other plan, and perfectly in harmony with the character of the domain as essentially "a forest." It is, briefly, to form several distinct portions of forest, each composed solely of trees and shrubs which are natives of one of the great forest regions of the temperate zone. denuded of trees and in a generally un-elty, or in that special and peculiar intersightly condition. The question at once est we should aim at, when we have to arises, How can these wide tracts of deal with such an extensive and varied land be best dealt with for the future rec- area as the recovered portions of Epping reation and enjoyment of the public? The Forest. We have already fine mixed act of Parliament, it is true, empowers plantations and woods, and many splendid the conservators to form playgrounds and arboretums; and at Kew we have in proccricket-grounds in suitable places, and ess of formation a magnificent collection some portions of these lands may be so of specimen trees which it would be out applied. But a very few acres will serve of place to attempt to imitate, while the for this purpose, or indeed are at all suit- expense would be far greater than almost able for it; and there will remain by far any other kind of planting. the larger portion to be otherwise dealt with. After all the agitation, all the arduous legal struggles, all the liberal, nay lavish, expenditure of money to secure this land to the people, it cannot surely be left as it is. Some steps must be taken to make it beautiful and picturesque in the future, and at least as well adapted for the recreation and enjoyment of coming generations as the old forest was for those which have passed away. The obvious course, and that which will at once occnr to every one, is to plant this ground in some way or other. It was once all forest. It is as a forest that the whole domain is dedicated to the public; and it is the forest scenery which has always given to the entire district its peculiar charm. Our country still has wide tracts of common and of open wastes, as well as extensive enclosed woods, and parks, and plantations; but our genuine forests are few and far between. Undoubtedly, therefore, as forest or woodland of some kind this land should be restored; and the question we have to decide is, Of what kind? In order to understand how interesting and how instructive this would be, and, especially, to how great an extent it would add to the variety and beauty of the scenery, while retaining to the fullest extent its character as a wild and picturesque woodland district, it will be necessary to give a brief sketch of the great forests of the north temperate zone, to point out their comparative richness, their distinctive characters, and their different styles of beauty; and in doing this I shall avail myself largely of the writings of the greatest authority on the subject, Professor Asa Gray, who has made the relations and origin of the various forest regions of the northern hemisphere the study of his life. Some may say, restore it as much as possible to its ancient state; plant it with oaks and beeches, with a sprinkling of elm, birch, and ash. This may be the easiest and the simplest, but it is certainly the least advantageous mode of dealing with the land. While these trees were grow- The two northern continents, America ing for a couple of generations at least on the one side, Europe and Asia on -they would be utterly uninteresting the other, have each two great and conwoods, and even in the far distant future trasted forest regions, an eastern and a would hardly surpass many other parts of western; and in both cases the eastern is the forest, while they would increase the very rich, while the western is comparamonotony which is its chief defect. An- tively poor. The trees of our own counother plan would be, to make a mixed try belong to the western or European planting of choicer trees, shrubs, and ever- forest region, which includes also the greens, which would be more beautiful adjacent parts of western Asia. while growing, and would in time form a region contains about eighty-five different forest of a more diversified character. Or kinds of trees (seventeen being conifers, again, a regular arboretum might be or firs and pines), and of these only twentyformed, a great variety of trees, and espe- eight are really natives of Britain, about cially choice pines and firs, being planted twenty being tolerably common, and formso as to form specimens. Either of these ing the wild trees of our woods and wastes, plans would at once possess some interest; with which we are all more or less famil but they would be utterly deficient in nov-iar. That |