78 Richard Jefferies. 



were nothing if not practical, but here we first recognise an added 

 poetical touchj which lies however rather in the treatment than in 

 the actual wording, for there is no highly-wrought passage from 

 first to last. Some of the sections, as " Cicely," " the Brook," and 

 that delightful visit to Uncle Bennett, are perfect in their way. 

 To our thinking it is his best book, taken all round. 



Hodge and his Masters comes very near being the ideal work 

 on the subject. It deals with things as they actually are. There is 

 not a so-called poetical touch in it from first to last, and yet look at 

 the chapters on " the Solicitor " and " the County Court," and see 

 how true to Nature and how graphic they are ! In this volume, for 

 once, the human element predominates. 



The first — and perhaps the greater — of the two country-life cycles 

 ends here. Its chief characteristics were minuteness and thorough- 

 ness of detail, absolute truth to Nature, a plain and telling style, 

 and a freshness which could only have been caught from the open 

 air. The first series is eminently practical, the second aims at more 

 than this. The first seldom or never contains a passage whose 

 diction and I'hythm verge on the poetical; the second is full of 

 such passages. One says what it has to say at great length, and 

 with remarkable evenness of merit. The other consists mainly of 

 short articles, often with little but their common theme to con- 

 nect them, and of very unequal value, now rising to the highest 

 point ever attained by his genius, now falling below the average. 

 To account for this we must remember that his later years were full 

 of suffering. The iron grip of hell, as he himself says, was on him, 

 and long-sustained work was virtually impossible. 



Between series and series came two books, nominally only intended 

 for boys, though one of them was somehow first published as a 

 three-volume novel, no doubt to the great bewildermect of subscribers 

 to Mudie's. Of these. Wood Magic is not altogether a success. 

 Few care to wade through the wars and intrigues among the beasts 

 and birds of the story. Kapchack and Choo Hoo are not very 

 interesting acquaintances, though touches here and there, notably 

 the hawk's death in the trap, and the retribution which falls on the 

 keeper, as well as little Bevis's own rambles and talks with the 



