W. KENT AND CO., PATERNOSTER ROW

LEICESTER: M. H. ALLEN, KING STREET; J. & T. SPENCER, MARKET PLACE:
NOTTINGHAM: R. ALLEN & SON.

1868.

PREFACE.

With tender ministrations thou, O Nature,
Healest thy wandering and distracted child;
Thou pourest on him thy soft influences,
Thy sunny hues, fair forms, and breathing sweets,
The melody of winds and woods and waters-

Till he relent, and can no more endure

To be a jarring and a dissonant thing

Amidst the general voice and minstrelsy!-COLERIDGE.

These words of a great Poet might stand for all the preface necessary to a volume like this. They express completely its reason and its highest object.

Here, in our Charnwood Forest, we have one of Nature's "centres of Force"; a gem into which God has compacted nearly all the influences which rocks and woods can yield. Believing that nothing better can be done for the human race in this age than to bring it into intelligent contact with Beauty, I desire to make the good influence of our beautiful Charnwood spread a little further, and give joy and blessing to a few more thousands of our noble English people.

F. T. M.