152 SCOTLAND AT MIDSUMMER 



as he thanked God for letting him see, for the first time, 

 an English common with the gorse in bloom ? For gorse 

 will not endure a Swedish winter, and Linnseus had only 

 known the plant hitherto as grown in pots for the 

 conservatory. 



The special glory of rural Britain the feature in our 

 land that most powerfully impresses foreign visitors is 

 the wealth of verdure and blossom, and the lavish scale 

 on which parks and pleasure-grounds are laid out round 

 country houses. But the perverse fashion which decrees 

 that Parliament shall sit through the months of sunshine 

 debars legislators from seeing their country homes at the 

 fairest, and tends to make gardeners stint the spring and 

 summer display in order to brighten the autumn borders. 

 It is a poor exchange, as many people are beginning to 

 realise; and the feeling in favour of a winter session 

 of Parliament, with the inevitable concomitant of the 

 London season, is growing apace. I write with a mourn- 

 ful conviction, born of the first summer I have been able 

 to spend in Scotland for five-and-twenty years, of the 

 sacrifice exacted by constant attendance at Westminster 

 during that time. 



