ON THE OTHER SIDE. A PLEA FOR SAVAGERY. 201 



romantic interest to the garden these tame birds 

 with clipped wings, of distraught aspect and dreamy 

 tread these docile animals with their limp legs and 

 vacant stare, may contribute to the scenic pomp' of 

 the place, but it is at the expense of their native in- 

 stincts and the joyous abandon of woodland life. 

 If this be the outcome of your boasted editing of 

 Nature, give us dead Nature untranslated. If this be 

 what comes of your idealisation of the raw materials 

 of Nature of the transference of your own emo- 

 tions to the simple, unsophisticated things of the 

 common earth, let us rather have Nature's unspoilt 

 self " God's Art," as Plato calls Nature where 



" Visions, as prophetic eyes avow, 

 Hang on each leaf, and cling to each bough." 



" But stay, here come the gardeners ! " 

 (Enter a gardener and two servants?) King Richard II. 



