F.eiieu- of Reviews, 1/10/13. 



LEADING ARTICLES 



803 



I'd make a bed of ferns, and lie 

 Stretched where the happy sunbeams dart, 

 And little winds come whispering by 

 And kiss these eyes (ab, God ! the 

 smart !) 



And maybe dreams would soothe my fret, 



And this poor body be a part 



Of that green world, and I forget 



I'd come from hell. 



(Ah, God ! my heart !) 



GOOD STORIES FROM THE MAGAZINES. 



King George, we are told in Every- 

 body's Story Magazine, knows his real 

 London better than most of us. He has 

 been everywhere and seen everything 

 without betraying his rank. Like his 

 sister, the present Queen of Norway, he 

 greatly liked the old-fashioned horse 

 'bus, and knew and patronised every 

 route. He himself has recounted one of 

 his adventures : — 



Seated immediately behind the driver, he 

 .heard the latter say to a troublesome horse : 

 " Come up, yer Royal 'Igbness, come up." 



"Why do you give him that name?" 

 asked the unknown prince. 



" Well, y'see, guv'nor," answered the 

 Jehu, "that 'oss is so 'aughty and lazy and 

 good for nothing, that I — well, I just calls 

 'im 'Is Royal 'Ighness — there ain't nothih' 

 else for it." 



Sir Henry Lucy gives a pleasant 

 sketch of Fanny Burney's early married 

 life at Norbury Park in the August 

 Cornhill. M. D'Arblay was a relentless, 

 if ineffective gardener, and the young 

 couple's trials make entertaining read- 

 ing:— 



M. D'AHblay devoted many days' toil, 

 from morn till eve, to planting strawberries 

 round the garden hedge. When he learned 

 that the plants would not bear fruit the 

 first year, he realised the fact that his 

 tenancy would terminate before that time. 



Nothing daunted him. His prevailing 

 passion was for transplanting. 



" Everything we possess," his wife wrote, 

 ' ' he moves from one end of the garden to 

 the other, to produce better effects. Roses 

 take the place of jessamines, jessamines of 

 honeysuckles, and honeysuckles of lilacs, till 

 they have all danced round as far as space 

 allows. Whether the effect may not be a 

 general mortality, Summer only can deter- 

 mine." 



There was a silver lining even to this 

 cloud. For a whole week the indomitable 

 D'Arblay day by day triumphantly marched 

 in with a cabbage under each arm. " Oh, 

 you've no idea how sweet they tasted," the 

 entranced wife wrote to her doubting father. 

 " We agreed they had a freshness and a 

 gout we had never met with before." Bliss 

 was short-lived. Towards the end of the 

 week the cabbages began to pall on the 

 palate. The devotees were even constrained 

 to admit that, like the buds hymned by 

 Cowper, they had " a bitter taste." On 



mentioning this to a neighbour, it was 

 pointed out that for something like ten days 

 the cabbages had been running to seed. 



There came a time when, owing to a re- 

 grettable incident, the land had rest for 

 many days. Towards noon, after a morning 

 of furious transplanting, D'Arblay caught 

 sight of a bucket of cold water standing by 

 the pump. He straightway plunged his heated 

 head in it, the shock bringing on a 

 dangerous illness that confined him to his 

 room for some weeks. Taking his first walk 

 abroad after convalescence, he observed a 

 bed in the garden bristling with weeds of 

 exceptional rankness. del! Thus was ad- 

 vantage taken of his temporary withdrawal 

 from the scene of his labours. Throwing 

 off his coat, he picked up a spade and in 

 less than an hour he had levelled the forest 

 of weeds. Mentioning the feat with shy 

 pride to a neighbour, who also had a garden, 

 he learned that he had dug up the only bed 

 of asparagus. 



Some interesting incident's concern- 

 ing Henry Clay Trumbull, the famous 

 editor of the American Sunday School 

 Tunes, are given in the Sunday at Home 

 for July : — 



Trumbull had the gift of incisive speech, 

 and knew it. " Oil has its uses," he said 

 once to a neighbour. " Some people use one 

 kind, some another, in getting on with other 

 folks." And then, half-ruefully, " I gener- 

 ally use oil of vitriol." 



When he was a chaplain in the army, a 

 soldier was expressing some half-seditious 

 opinions, and his fellows were laughing at 

 him. 



" Well," said he to Chaplain Trumbull, 

 who was passing by, " I suppose a soldier's 

 got a right to hold his own opinions, chap- 

 lain, hasn't he?" 



"Oh, yes," the chaplain answered, "if 

 he'll take care and hold 'em, and not always 

 be slinging them around carelessly before 

 others." 



In the Century Magazine for August 

 Mr. A. C. Benson tells an interesting 

 story of Wordsworth, who went to call 

 on Miss Harriet Martineau at Amble- 

 side, in the house which she had built 

 and laid out. There was a gathering of 

 neighbours present, and Wordsworth 

 stood for a long time at the window 

 contemplating the beautiful landscape 

 outside. Then he turned to the party 

 and said, " Miss Martineau, I congratu- 

 late you upon your beautiful little 



