3.

FROM BROCKENHURST TO LYMINGTON AND BOLDRE.

HE forestal vil

lage of Boldre should

have an especial interest for all lovers of English woodland scenery, for there lived and wrote William

Gilpin. His first

LYMINGTON RIVER.

impressions of his surroundings and

the manner in which he was drawn to take interest in and to note and describe the new scenes of beauty which were opened up to him on his removal to Boldre are simply and

pleasantly told in a letter-dated March 4th, 1791 -to William Mitford, the historian of Greece, who had presented him to the living of Boldre. The letter ran thus:- When your friendship fixed me in this pleasing retreat, within the precincts of New Forest, I had little intention of wandering farther among its scenes than the bounds of my own parish or of amusing myself any more with writing on picturesque subjects. But one scene drew me on to another, till at length I had traversed the whole forest. The subject was new to me. I had been much among lakes and mountains, but I had never lived in a forest. I knew little of its scenery. Everything caught my attention, and as I generally had a memorandum-book in my hand I made minutes of what I observed, throwing my remarks under the two heads of forest scenery in general and the scenery of particular places. Thus, as small things lead to greater, an evening walk or ride became the foundation of a volume.'

It is a pretty road which leads from Brockenhurst, southwards, to Boldre. On leaving our inn-door, in the main street of Brockenhurst, we

turn to the left, in a south-westerly direction, walk through the straggling village and then turn, again to the left, into the Lymington road, running southward after crossing the lines of the South-Western Railway and passing the small post-office. A pretty roadside cottage almost immediately comes into view, low, long, thatched and brick-walled, with four white-framed windows -two below and two peeping out from under the lower slope of the roof-and walls densely covered with climbing shrubs. From a bordering strip of greensward that forms, so to speak, the roadside 'setting' of this little dwelling, a whiteposted iron gate leads through a low, quickset bordering hedge, overspread with an embrowning tinge, into the neat garden, and, through it, to a rustic wooden porch almost hidden by greenery.

No dwelling-place so well accords with leafy surroundings as one that is itself covered with verdure. Near a wood or forest a cottage, or other dwelling-house, with square, unadorned brick-red walls, tiled-roof, and straight inclosing iron fence, ill agrees with its surroundings, and strikes the eye as being harsh and inconsistent.

Embowered in trees and shrubs and half-hidden by climbing trailers, clothed, so to speak, like the country around it, it seems to be almost a part of the wild scenes of Nature; for in the wildest of these scenes we cannot, though no human being may be present, forget that man exists and must find a dwelling-place.

On our right, as we follow the high road southwards, we pass a cottage which, were it not for the brightness of its ivy-mantled walls, would be buried in shadows, so snugly is it ensconced amidst greenery by its garden fronting of Sycamore, Horse-Chestnut, Scotch Pine, and Birch-the embrowning horse-chestnut leaves and the yellowing foliage of the fading Birch contrasting well with the bluish-green of Pinus sylvestris. A trickling stream which runs by the side of the road is made bright by the yellow bloom of the Water Ragwort, and the crimsoning of the wayside Sorrel, whilst, from a triangular strip of greensward that borders, the road, grow the white and golden crowns of the Wild Chamomile, the yellow flowers of the Hawkweed, and one or two late Buttercups.