But what we should see in them is that beauty of form, which in simple outline has seldom been excelled, proclaiming a people who should in their descendants be the future masters of Art, as then they were of warfare. The history of a nation may be more plainly read by its manufactures than by its laws or constitution. Its true æsthetic life, too, should be determined not so much by its list of poets or painters, as by the beauty of the articles in daily use. And so still at Alderholt, not many miles off, the same beds of clay are worked, and jars, and flasks, and dishes made, but with a difference which may, perhaps, enable us to understand our inferiority in Art to the former rulers of our island. What further we should see in the whole district, is the way in which the Romans stamped their iron rule upon every land which they conquered. Everywhere in the Forest remain their traces. Urns, made at these potteries, full of their coins, have been dug up at Anderwood and Canterton. Nails at Cadenham, millstones at Studley Head, bricks at Bentley, iron slag at Sloden, with the long range of embankments stretching from wood to wood, and the camps at Buckland Rings and Eyeworth, show that they well knew both how to conquer in war and to rule in peace. [Illustration: Oil-Flask, Drinking-Cups, Bowl, and Jar.] CHAPTER XIX. PARISH REGISTERS AND CHURCHWARDENS’ BOOKS. [Illustration: Boldre Church.] As the monasteries of former days preserved the general records of the times, so, in a minor degree, do our churches preserve the special history of our villages. In the social life of the past our Church Books are the counterpart of our Corporation Books, performing quite as much for their own parishes as the latter for their boroughs; not only giving, in the register, a yearly census of the population, but by the Churchwardens’ Accounts the social and religious life of each period. Added to this also the clergyman, having nowhere else to chronicle them, has often entered in his register the passing events of the day; so that this further possesses, at times, a wider historical interest than could have been expected, giving us often glimpses of the views of men, who, however unsympathetic with the changes and fortunes of the hour, still carry, from their office and position, some not inconsiderable weight. All these books are far too seldom consulted. The few notes we shall make are by no means given as examples of what may be elsewhere found, but must be looked upon only as extracts from the books of a district, where we naturally could expect little of any general interest. The New Forest has never been, since registers became the law of the land, the scene of any of the great events of English history—never the theatre of the Civil Wars, as the Midland Counties, where entries of victories and defeats, and battles and sieges, are mixed with the burials and births.