With the Restoration, however, and the revival of the ancient rights of the crown, it was found necessary to resume the sessions of the court of mine law, under the presidency of Sir Baynham Throckmorton. Thus it first of all met again on the 16th November, 1663, and continued so to do, from time to time, for the ensuing Hundred years, passing at different periods its seventeen "orders." These verdicts are chiefly remarkable for reducing the area of the miners rights to the Hundred of St. Briavel's, though they fail to say what constituted _free minership_ beyond the old definition given in the "Book of Dennis," viz., "beene borne and abiding within the castle of St. Brevill's and the bounds of the Forest as aforesaid." In 1834 the Government commissioners were informed that it involved birth from a free father, and working a year and a day in the mines. They are still a numerous and important fraternity, without whom no new mine works can be commenced. [Picture: Effigy of a Forest Free Miner] Their aspect when accoutered for work is given in the frontispiece. If compared with their mediaeval appearance, as displayed in the miners' crest, the interval of four hundred years is scarcely discoverable. Every mining appurtenance is retained, only somewhat altered in shape, and that, perhaps, not for the better, be it cap, "bellis," or general attire. Only the beard is absent, but then there are the shoes. [Picture: Forest of Dean Iron Miners ready for work] On several occasions they conferred their freedom on the leading gentry of the neighbourhood. By their orders they also sanctioned the sinking of _pits_, as distinguished from _levels_, extending the interval between mine and mine from "within so much space that ye miner may stand and cast ridding and stones soe farr from him with a bale as the manner is," to five hundred yards. At the present time the deputy gaveller, Mr. T. Forster Brown, is the resident official under the Commissioner in charge of Her Majesty's Woods, &c., and he, with his respected predecessor, have at all times most obligingly facilitated the author's inquiries by giving the desired information. It was during the deputy gavellership of the late Mr. John Atkinson at Coleford that the writer chanced to meet with the original transcript, here presented to the reader, of the "Book of Dennis." The first printing and publication of it took place in 1687, by William Cooper, at the Pelican, in Little Britain, and it has been frequently but imperfectly reprinted. Finding on examination that the reign of the first of the Edwards, and not the third, was the period to which it assigned the confirmation of the Forest of Dean Mine Laws, and that it contained many other inaccuracies, he determined to prepare, in accordance with the valued suggestion of Mr. Smirke, Judge of the Stannaries of Cornwall, a true copy of so ancient and curious a document.