INTRODUCTION 



By F. EDWARD HULME, F.L.S. 



THE appreciation of Nature has in these latter days 

 made great progress. With but few exceptions our 

 forefathers seem to have had but little sympathy with 

 rural life, and the traveller journeying on the grand 

 tour through Europe viewed with a feeling of repulsion 

 the mountain passes which are now each year sought out 

 by thousands with delight. We have, indeed, a charming 

 picture in Chaucer's description of how, on the coming 

 of May, he put aside his books and sallied forth to revel 

 in the beauty of Spring, the joyous singing of the birds, 

 the uprising of the daisies in the meadows outside the 

 city, and all the wealth of interest around him. A 

 Ruysdael would paint the rushing torrent or the forest 

 shades ; a Van Huysum depict the brilliant triumphs 

 of the florist's skill. But these were conspicuous ex- 

 ceptions: ordinarily, Nature was either represented 

 as of gloomy terror, forbidding in its aspect; or so 

 emasculated and brought into line with popular pre- 

 possessions, that a mountain background became little 

 more than a County Council park, with well-ordered 

 winding paths fringed by neatly trained trees. 



It has been laid down as an altogether self-evident 



