Beschreibung:

(Bedford, W. K. Ryland). Records of the Woodmen of Arden from 1785 with Roll of Members of the Society and Other Notes Mainly Compiled from the Archives of the Forest. Privately Printed, 1885. Book 6 preliminary leaves, 152 pages : frontispiece, illustrations, plates (1 color) ; 27 cm [Edinburg] : Printed for private circulation, 1885. 12 by 9 inches in the original green cloth with gilt titling to the spine and decoration to upper cover. Philotoxi Ardenæ" by John Morfitt: p.[99]-137./ Edited by W.K.R. Bedford; includes bibliographic notes. "No doubt a higher antiquity has been claimed for the society, as has been the case with other ancient institutions, than in all probability it can legitimately boast. The Warwick-shire gentlemen who met at the Bull's Head Inn, Meriden, in November 1785, professed to revive certain ancient meetings of Woodmen of the Forest of Arden, but that they could trace any direct descent from the verdurers of the Forest, of whose mythical prowess- 'clapping into the clout at six hundred yards' Dr. Dasent speaks in his 'Annals of an Eventful Life,' or even from the county heroes who figure in the animated description of the shooting match with which Mr. Gresley opens his historical romance of the Forest of Arden, is more than dubious. It appears from Mr. Digby's diary that 'Paradise,' the recreation-ground, as nowadays it would be called, of the village of Meriden, had no butts when the society was formed; and we may with greater probability conjecture that the revival which Sir Ashton Lever and the other founders of the Royal Toxophilite Society had set going had infected the gentle-men of Warwickshire than that any lingering tradition of local archery inspired them with an ambition to continue it. " Source: Archery, by C. J. Longman and Col. H. Walrond. (The Badminton Library) London, Longman, Green, & Co., 1894. Condition: Both hinges are cracked; modest cover wear; contents clean and complete.