4 MY LIFE AS A NATURALIST 



Poems," published in 1808 by John Murray and A. Constable 

 & Co., I cull the following interesting announcement : 



" The Author submits the following Poems to the Public with 

 the same deference to their opinion, the same hopes, and the 

 same apprehensions which invariably accompany the exhibition 

 of his productions in another and a sister art." 



As showing Richard WestalPs passionate love for Nature I 

 quote a few fines from his " Day in Spring," which occupies the 

 first thirty-nine pages of his volume under review. He sings in 

 Stanza IV : 



Now I seek the quiet grove, 



Where the Ring Dove woos his love ; 



Where, beneath each spreading tree 



Clust'ring grows the Strawberry 



And the tangling underwood, 



Frequent twines the devious road, 



Till a sloping lawn I cross, 



Girt with Oak, and soft with Moss, 



Whose deep bosom thick is set 



With the purple Violet, 



And the Orchis rears his head 



Spiral from its velvet bed. 



A further quotation may be given from " On the Approach of 

 Winter " : 



How chang'd, how silent is the grove, 

 Late the gay haunt of youth and love ! 

 Its tangling branches now are shorn 

 Of leafy honours, and upborne 

 By their close tops, the snow hath made 

 Beneath a strange and solemn shade. 

 Here oft with careless ease I lay 

 On the green lap of genial May ; 

 Dear was the stream, whose bottom shone 

 With fragments rude of scupltured stone, 

 Which from yon Abbey's ivy'd wall, 

 Shook by the wind, would often fall ; 

 Dear was the sound its waters made, 

 As down the pebbled slope they play'd. 

 I hear not now its mimic roar, . 

 Seiz'd by the frost it sounds no more ; 

 But dreary, mute, and sad it stands, 

 Torpid, beneath chill Winter's hands. 



Four further lines from " A Day in Spring " may be given, as 



