10 NATURE IN DOWNLAND 



Wlien I "was a youth a very long time ago, in a 

 distant land, poetry about Nature had a peculiar 

 fascination for me ; but it was hard to find, and I fed 

 mostly (when I got anything to eat) on what would 

 now be regarded as mere dry husks. A battered old 

 volume of Shenstone was one of the three or four 

 poetical works I possessed. In a book of elegant 

 extracts, in verse and prose, I came upon some 

 passages from Hurdis — his Village Curate — which 

 greatly delighted me ; and now in another world, and 

 ff^ after a thousand years, as it seems, I am surprised 

 to find that they still live in memory. I will even 

 venture to quote some lines of the favourite passages : — 



It was my admiration 

 To view the structure of that little work, 

 A bird's nest — mark it well, within, without : 

 No tool had he that wrought, no knife to cut, 

 No rail to fix, no bodkin to insert. 

 No glue to join ; his little beak was all ; 

 And yet how neatly finished ! What nice hand, 

 With every implement and means of art. 

 And twenty years' apprenticeship to boot. 

 Could make me such another ? Fondly then 

 We boast of excellence, whose noblest skill 

 Instinctive genius foils ! 



It was not strange that these lines pleased me, for 

 I was myself then a diligent seeker and great admirer 

 of little birds' nestles : they were pretty objects to 

 look at, and there was, moreover, a mystery about 

 them which made them differ from all other things. 

 For though so admirably fashioned — whether attached 



