3 MY GARDEN A CQ UATNTANCE. 



fulness of absolute leisure. Mr. White seems never to have 

 had any harder work to do than to study the habits of his 

 feathered fellow-townsfolk, or to watch the ripening of his 

 peaches on the wall. His volumes are the journal of Adam 

 in Paradise, 



Annihilating all that s made 

 To a green thought in a green shade.&quot; 



It is positive rest only to look into that garden of his. It 

 is vastly better than to 



&quot; See great Diocletian walk 

 In the Salonian garden s noble shade,&quot; 



for thither ambassadors intrude to bring with them the 

 noises of Home, while here the world has no entrance. No 

 rumour of the revolt of the American Colonies seems to 

 have reached him. &quot; The natural term of an hog s life &quot; has 

 more interest for him than that of an empire. Burgoyne 

 may surrender and welcome \ of what consequence is thai 

 compared with the fact that we can explain the odd 

 tumbling of rooks in the air by their turning over &quot; to 

 scratch themselves with one claw ? &quot; All the couriers in 

 Europe spurring rowel-deep make no stir in Mr. White s 

 little Chartreuse ; but the arrival of the house-martin a day 

 earlier or later than last year is a piece of news worth 

 sending express to all his correspondents. 



Another secret charm of this book is its inadvertent 

 humour, so much the more delicious because unsuspected 

 by the author. How pleasant is his innocent vanity in 

 adding to the list of the British, and still more of the Sel- 

 bornian, fauna ! I believe he would gladly have consented 

 to be eaten by a tiger or a crocodile, if by that means the 

 occasional presence within the parish limits of either of 

 these anthropophagous brutes could have been established. 

 He brags of no fine society, but is plainly a little elated by 

 &quot; having considerable acquaintance with a tame brown owl.&quot; 

 Most of us have known our share of owls, but few can boast 



