But they were never so kind to
appeare to me, though I am the usufructuary:† it seemes they reserve
that grace only for the proprietors, to whom they have continued a
constant kindnesse for a succession of generations of the no lesse
ingenious than honorable family of the Herberts. These were the
places where our Kings and Queens used to divert themselves in the
hunting season. Cranbourn Chase, which reaches from Harnham Bridge, at
Salisbury, near to Blandford, was belonging to Roger Mortimer, Earle
of March: his seate was at his castle at Cranbourne. If these oakes
here were vocall as Dodona's, some of the old dotards (old stagge-
headed oakes, so called) could give us an account of the amours and
secret whispers between this great Earle and the faire Queen Isabell.
*I remember some old relations of mine and [other] old men hereabout
that have seen Sir Philip doe thus.
†[Aubrey held the manor farm of Broad Chalk under a lease from the
Earl of Pembroke. - J. B.]
To find the proportion of the downes of this countrey to the vales, I
did divide Speed's Mappe of Wiltshire with a paire of cizars,
according to the respective hundreds of downes and vale, and I weighed
them in a curious ballance of a goldsmith, and the proportion of the
hill countrey to the vale is as .... to .... sc. about 3/4 fere.
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SHEEP. As to the nature of our Wiltshire sheep, negatively, they are
not subject to the shaking; which the Dorsetshire sheep are.
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