The house is a superb modern edifice, commanding a most exqui site prospect over the Southampton Water, which appears spread out like a spacious lake, and the adjacent country. The Shrubberies and Gardens are extensive; the Green-House, and HotHouse, are very elegant, and furnished with plants of almost every description, both indigenous and exotic. About one mile and a half north-west from Southampton is FREEMANTLE, the villa of John Jarrett, Esq. the interior of which is very elegantly ornamented, and particularly a Parlour, whose sides are veneered with choice marble, purchased in Italy by the present proprietor. The Library and Drawing-Room are tastefully ornamented with arebusque paintings: two neat Lodges have been lately erected here with artificial stone. REDBRIDGE, a populous hamlet, at the mouth of the river Test, in the parish of Milbrook, is of very remote origin, and is mentioned, in Bede's Ecclesiastical History, by the appellation Reodford, or Reed-ford: this was afterwards changed to Rodbrige, as appears by the Domesday Book; and hence the derivation of its present name. Here was a Monastery in the infancy of the Saxon Church, but no particulars concerning it are known. Cynbreth, or Cimberth, who was Abbot about the year 687, is recorded to have converted, and baptised, the two brothers of Arvandus, the Sovereign of the Isle of Wight, before their execution by command of Ceadwalla, King of Wessex, who had conquered that Isle, and treated its inhabitants with great inhumanity.** Redbridge has a considerable trade in coals, timber, corn, &c. and ship-building has been carried on here for a great length of time. The Andover Canal terminates here, and the whole place has The young Princes had crossed from the Isle of Wight to Hampshire, and concealed themselves at a place called Ad Lapidem, but were afterwards betrayed to Ceadwalla. Ad Lapidem is supposed to be Stone, in the parish of Fawley, as that place is on the sea-coast, and , immediately opposite to the Isle of Wight. + Several vessels have lately been built at Redbridge, calculated for very swift sailing, on the curious construction of Brigadier Generaļ Bentham has a very busy appearance. The Bridge is partly of considerable age, and partly modern; it unites with a new causeway, that has been continued over the marshes to the village of Totton. Having Bentham, now superintendant of naval-works in the Dock-Yards. "This gentleman, who possesses an extraordinary genius in the shipbuilding line, received permission from the Lords of the Admiralty, in the spring of the year 1795, to put some of his experiments into execution at Redbridge. In the formation of these vessels, the saving in the article of timber is very great, as they do not take up more than an eighth part of that which is employed in the common mode of framing ships. Bulk-heads, or partitions, are placed athwart the vessels, as well as fore and aft; which make them at least equally strong, with ships constructed in the ordinary way, at about half the expence, and are also calculated to preserve them from sinking, should they at any rime spring a leak, or strike against a rock, and the water would then be confined by these bulk-heads. The two first of the vessels built under General Bentham's inspection, were called Gun Schooners. These were each from 140 to 160 tons burthen, and were named the Redbridge, and the Milbrook; one of them carrying sixteen, and the other fourteen, eighteen pounders. The two next were each of 600 tons, and were called the Dart and Arrow, each carrying twenty-eight thirty-two pounders: these were denominated Sloops of War, but they are at present equal, if not superior, to our common frigates of twentyeight guns. Instead of their usual ballast, they are furnished with capacious tanks, or reservoirs, made of tinned copper, and containing forty tons of water in bulk: these are placed in the wings of the vessel; take up but little room, and are not found in the least detrimental, even in heavy gales. The water with which they were filled, after having been two years on board, still retained its sweetness and transparency. The two last that were built, very nearly resembled the first: they were named the Netley and the Eling; one of them has fourteen, and the other twelve, eighteen pounders. Those who have sailed in these various vessels, as well as gentlemen well acquainted with naval tactics, agree, that they are equally strong with our ordinary ships; that they sail better, and that they are, on the whole, the best sea-boats that swim they will also safely ride at anchor, in such circumstances as would oblige other vessels to part, or at least, slip their cables." Buller's Companion round Southampton, 1801, Having entered the ancient precincts of the NEW FOREST, we shall give a somewhat extended account of that district; as it is not only interesting in itself, but also from its connection with history, and particularly so with regard to the annals of the first and second of our Norman Sovereigns. This tract, according to its earliest boundaries, included the whole of that part of Hampshire, which lies between the Southampton River on the east, the British Channel on the south, and the river Avon on the west. The advantages it derives from this situation, in respect to conveniency of watercarriage, are superior to those associated with any other forest in England; having in its vicinity several places for shipping timber, among which are Lymington, Beaulieu, and Redbridge; with the additional advantage of the remotest of these ports being little more than thirty miles from the dock-yard at Portsmouth, the most considerable naval arsenal in the kingdom. That this was a woody tract previous to its complete afforesta tion by William the Conqueror, (of which the Domesday Book affords a most authentic proof,) may be inferred from its ancient name, Itene, or Y Thene, as well as from other circumstances. The memory of that Sovereign, however, has been unjustly calumniated on account of the formation of the New Forest, as will clearly appear from the ensuing statement, which has been partly condensed from the Topographical Remarks on Hampshire, by Mr. Warner, and partly formed from an attentive examination of the remarks of others on the same subject. In Lambarde's Topographical Dictionary the New Forest is described in the following terms. "A large portion of Hampshire, which, after the opinion of the most and best approved historians, William the Conqueror laid to Forest, destroying townes, villages, and churches, thirty miles longe." This is an abridgment of the first monkish accounts of the formation of the New Forest; accounts followed implicitly (but with increasing aggravations) by every annalist, and writer of English history, from the conclusion of the eleventh century to the beginning of the last; at which æra Voltaire started doubts with respect to the fact of William's devastations: and another elegant writer, (Dr, (Dr. Warton,) in lis "Essay on the Life and Writings of Pope," concurred with Voltaire as to the Conqueror's character being in this instance misrepresented, and his oppressions magnified. The devastation attributed to William, by some historians, has been finely versified by the above poet; and even his coloring scarcely exceeds the strong language of his prototypes. "Proud Nimrod first the bloody chase began; And savage howlings fill the sacred quires." That the picture of William's tyranny is overcharged, only a little attention is requisite to discover: and to whatever extent the afforestation by that Monarch may have been carried, there can be little hazard in declaring, that the act itself was not attended with those circumstances of outrage and violation which the monkish writers have so minutely detailed: the devastation of many villages, the extermination of the inhabitants, and the destruction of (according to different writers) twenty-two, thirty-six, fifty-two, or even sixty churches.* With respect to the monkish writers, who first raised the cry of sacrilege against the Conqueror for this afforestation, we should cautiously admit their evidence in matters wherein themselves were interested. Indeed, our caution should be doubled in the present instance; since these ecclesiastics, the only biographers of William, were Walter, Mapes, Hemingford, Knyghton, &c. The singular circumstance of the Conqueror's sons, Richard and William Rufus, and his grandson Henry, all meeting their deaths in the New Forest, have greatly contributed to establish the opinion of his cruelty in forming it; these events being popularly regarded as judgments. were his bitterest and most rancorous foes. Exasperated by injuries and contumely, which his power prevented them from reveng ing, they siezed the means of retaliation, to which impotence and little minds too frequently have recourse, and took every method to traduce his name, and blast his memory: magnifying each small deviation from propriety into enormous wickedness, each exertion of prerogative into unbounded tyranny; and when real sources of abuse failed, inventing excesses which never occurred, and evils that never had a being. It is peculiarly remarkable that the author of the latter part of the Saxon Chronicle, who was indisputably contemporary with William, and who seems to have viewed his vices with a severe eye, should not take the least notice of the afforestation, nor of the cruelties said to be inflicted on its inhabitants in consequence of it. Every other memorable event of this reign he particularly relates; the total devastation of Northumberland; the compilation of the Domesday Book; the universal and formal introduction of the feudal system into the kingdom; and the fearful famine and pestilence, which other monkish writers have converted into an infliction from heaven as the punishment of William's supposed acts of tyranny. These are all circumstantially mentioned, but not a hint occurs relative to the formation of the New Forest. What is still more singular, he paints the Conqueror's passion for the chace in the warmest colors; and condemns it with the greatest severity, lamenting the excesses which the indulgence of it led him to commit; in the enumeration of which, he would most assuredly have included the remarkable one of the devastation in Hampshire, if the circumstance had reached his knowledge. May we not then fairly infer, from the silence of this accurate and impartial writer, that the Afforestation, which, from the authority of the Domesday Book, was incontrovertibly made by William, was effected with such little injury to the subject, and such little disturbance of social intercourse, that it was scarcely, perhaps entirely, unnoticed beyond the immediate scene of its occurrence? It is further observable, that no particular æra is marked by these annalists at which this afforestation was made; a very extraordinary |