88

Notwithstanding the historian’s apprehensions, it may be a questionwhether these beautiful enclosures, of which the English are so justlyproud, have increased within the last two centuries. Andrew Borde,who wrote in the reign of Henry VIII. , said there were then more parksin England than in all Europe besides, over which he is reputed to havetravelled. And the old patent rolls are full of licenses for emparkations,which do not now exist. The king’s warrant was as necessary to sur-round a park with palings or walls, as it was to embattle the mansion.

Plate XXVII.— djt —As Plate IX. is devoted to the

manner of timber houses at the commencement, so is this Plate to thesame class of buildings at the conclusion, of the Tudor period.

“ Of the curiousness of these piles,” says Harrison,* “ I speak not,sith our workemen are growne generallie to such an excellencie ofdeuise in the frames now made, that they farre passe the finest of theold. And such is their husbandrie in dealing with their timber, that thesame stuffe which in time past was reiected as crooked, vnprofitable, andto no vse but the fire, dooth now come in the fronts and best part of theworke. Whereby the common saieng is likewise in these daies verifiedin our mansion-houses, which earst was said onelie of the timber forships, ‘ that no oke can grow so crooked but it falleth out to some vse.’”Thus it appears that many forms, which at first sight may be thoughtfantastical, were founded on good sense, and what is still more re-commendatory in these times — economy.

There seems also to have been a better principle of construction in

* This author wrote from his own observation, and his authority is, on that account,invaluable.