Such is the New Forest now, and such it was eight centuries ago, on a bright sunny morning, towards the end of summer. The hour was still early, for the dew yet sparkled in the grass, or pattered down from the foliage as the wind stirred among the forest branches. The scene was one of the loveliest the chace afforded—a bright glade embosomed in the most silent depths of the forest. The whole of this open space was carpeted with the thickest and greenest grass, varying in hue, at every breath of the balmy wind over the undulated surface. On one side, the glade was bounded by a gentle elevation, covered with stately oaks, whose giant branches, spreading out far and wide, buried their trunks in the obscurity of a constant twilight—and on the other three sides the ground either extended itself in a plain, or sloped so gently off, that the descent was nearly imperceptible. Thousands of wild flowers spangled the surface of the glade, some flaunting proudly on the air, and some modestly hiding under the long grass, yet all sending forth the most delicious perfume—while innumerable birds, of every variety of plumage, hopped from twig to twig, or skimmed across the glade, filling the air with untold harmonies,—and high in the heaven, a solitary lark, lingering there long after his fellows had departed, poured forth his lay with such sweet, such liquid harmony, that a stranger, unaccustomed to his song, and unable to distinguish his tiny form far up in the sunny ether, might well have fancied those unrivalled notes the breathings of an unseen cherubim.