ed as "not very
orderly;" in 1810 as being in a condition "nearly as wretched as anything
now existing in Ireland," and as "exceedingly excitable," prone to make
unlimited demands in opening and carrying on their works, destroying the
timber for such purposes, so as ultimately to leave hardly a tithe for
the supply of the Royal dockyards, perpetually at strife amongst
themselves, so jealous of any "foreigners" coming into the Forest as to
deter most persons, and highly suspicious of any efforts to improve the
property of the Crown, even when intended for their personal good,
repeatedly destroying the new plantations, and terrifying the adjoining
districts by forming riotous mobs. Yet the Chartists from Newport and
places adjacent, in 1840, met with no sympathy from the Foresters, who
drove their delegates away.

Happily for all parties these evils have almost entirely disappeared,
through the good success which Providence has vouchsafed to the late
judicious laws for regulating the mines, settling the relief of the poor,
and establishing churches and schools in every part of the Forest. The
former state of things was in fact the effect of the exclusive and
protective rights, with corresponding usages, of which the well-meaning
but short-sighted inhabitants thought so much; and hence their Magna
Charta, as they were wont to call their book of "Dennis," was rather a
mischief than a benefit. Their general feelings are characteristically
described in the following lines from the pen of worthy Kitty Drew, the
self-taught Forest poetess, in her poem on the Forest of Dean, dated
1835:--

"In days of old 'twas here and there a cot,
Of architecture they'd little knowledge got;
None but a few free miners then lived here,
Who thought no harm to catch a good fat deer,
Or steal an oak--it was their chief delight.
Old foresters, I'm told, did think 'twas right
To steal an oak, and bear it clean away;
But caught, the jail a twelvemonth and a day
It was their doom, or else must pay a fine,
The which to do they did not much incline.

* * * * *

"But noble miners there have been, I ken,
By their old works, stout, able-bodied men;
They'd not the knowledge then that now they've got,
To work by steam--hand-labour was their lot.
But I am told that many ages back
A foreign army did our land invade,
And blood and carnage then was a