John Richard de Capel Wise (1831-1 April 1890) was a writer and natural historian. Although he wrote on Shakespeare and other subjects, his most successful work was his 1862 book The New Forest: its History and its Scenery, which describes the scenery, the natural history, the antiquities, and the dialect of the New Forest, in Hampshire, England.Wise was born in 1831, and was the eldest son of John Robert Wise, (a former British consul-general in Sweden) and his wife Jane. He attended Grantham Grammar School, and then in 1849 enrolled at Lincoln College, Oxford. He took no degree, and left the university to travel abroad. On returning to England he wandered through country districts, frequently changing his residence