Notes and Queries, Number 184, May 7, 1853

Spring afterwards came to be used for underwood, &c. Perhaps it answered to the present coppice, which is composed of the springs or shoots of the growth which has been cut down:

"The lofty high wood and the lower spring." Drayton's Muses' Elysium, 10.

"The lesser birds that keep the lower spring." Id., note.

It was also used as equivalent to grove:

"Unless it were The nightingale among the thick-leaved spring." Fletcher's Faith. Shep., v. 1.

where, however, it may be the coppice.

"This hand Sibylla's golden boughs to guard them, Through hell and horror, to the Elysian springs." Massinger's Bondman, ii. 1.

In the following place Fairfax uses spring to express the "salvatichi soggiorni," i. e. selva of his original:

"But if his courage any champion move Too try the hazard of this dreadful spring." Godf. of Bull.,