Page:The New Forest - its history and its scenery.djvu/243

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
The Presence of the Romans.

of poets or painters, as by the beauty of the articles in daily use.

And so still at Alderholt, not many miles off, the same beds of clay are worked, and jars, and flasks, and dishes made, but with a difference which may, perhaps, enable us to understand our inferiority in Art to the former rulers of our island.

What further we should see in the whole district, is the way in which the Romans stamped their iron rule upon every land which they conquered. Everywhere in the Forest remain their traces. Urns, made at these potteries, full of their coins, have been dug up at Anderwood and Canterton. Iron nails at Cadenham, millstones at Studley Head, bricks at Bentley, iron slag at Sloden, with the long range of embankments stretching from wood to wood, and the camps at Buckland Rings and Eyeworth, show that they well knew both how to conquer in war and to rule in peace.

225