table; afterwards only three, except it might be presents, or
venison from his own parks, or fishes from his ponds. And if, at
any time, he had guests living in his house at the request of
some great person, or of some friend, or had public messengers,
or had harpers (_citharoedos_), or any one of that sort, he took
the first opportunity of shifting to another of his Manor-houses,
and so got rid of such superfluous individuals,'--very prudently,
I think.

As to his parks, of these, in the general repair of buildings,
general improvement and adornment of the St. Edmund Domains, 'he
had laid out several, and stocked them with animals, retaining a
proper huntsman with hounds: and, if any guest of great quality
were there, our Lord Abbot with his Monks would sit in some
opening of the woods, and see the dogs run; but he himself never
meddled with hunting, that I saw.'


'In an opening of the woods;'--for the country was still dark
with wood in those days; and Scotland itself still rustled
shaggy and leafy, like a damp black American Forest, with cleared
spots and spaces here and there. Dryasdust advances several
absurd hypotheses as to the insensible but almost total
disappearance of these woods; the thick wreck of which now lies
as peat, sometimes with huge heart-of-oak timber logs imbedded in
it, on many a height and hollow. The simplest reason doubtless
is, that by increase of husbandry, there was increase of cattle;
increase of hunger for green spring food; and so, more and more,
the new seedlings got yearly eaten out in April; and the old
trees, having only a certain length of life in them, died