London, on
the Essex side, known as Enfield Chase, containing numbers of deer. If
we remember rightly, it is alluded to in _The Fortunes of Nigel_.

There are many more parks in the south than in the north of England--a
circumstance which is remarkable, having regard to the wilder
character of the ground in the former.

According to a valuable work on parks published a few years ago by
Mr. Shirley, a large landed proprietor, there are three hundred and
thirty-four parks still stocked with deer in the different counties
of England, and red deer are found in about thirty-one. It is
supposed that the oldest is that attached to Eridge Castle, near that
celebrated and most ancient of English watering-places, Tonbridge
Wells, in Sussex. It is very extensive, and there are no less than
ninety miles of grass drives cut through the park and woods. Almost
the largest park is that attached to the present duke of Marlborough's
famous seat, Blenheim. A large proportion of this magnificent demesne
formed part of Woodstock Chase, a favorite hunting-seat of British
sovereigns from an early date up to the time of Queen Anne. It was
then granted by the Crown to the hero of Blenheim, far more fortunate
in respect of the nation's gift than the hero of Waterloo, whose grant
of lands lay in a swamp which it cost him a little fortune to drain.
Next to Blenheim, in point of size, stands Tatton in Cheshire,
the seat of Lord Egerton. It contains 2500 acres, and the portion
appropriated to deer is far larger than at Blenheim. Tatton is from
ten to eleven miles around.

Another extensive park, 1500 acres, is that at Stowe, the duke of
Buckingham's. When in 1848 the family misfortunes reached a climax
which necessitated the sale of everything in Stowe House, the deer
in the park were sold off. But twenty-five years have rolled by, and
restored in a great degree the prosperity of the family. The duke is
again living at his splendid ancestral seat, is by degrees restoring
to their former home as the opportunity offers many of its scattered
treasures, and has restocked the park with deer.

Two parks pre-eminently famous for the magnificence of their oak
timber are Keddleston, Lord Scarsdale's, in Derbyshire, and Bagot's
Park, Lord Bagot's, in Staffordshire. The latter, which contains a
thousand acres, is a very ancient enclosure. It contains, besides the
deer, a herd of wild goats said to have been presented by Richard II.
to an ancestor of the p