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WHITWELL: THE LATE BISHOP OF WAKEFIELD. 395 
_ At Barmouth, in 1875, I unexpectedly met Mr. How, and he at 
once led me to the beach to look at some of its specialities in the 
way of plants. In our course we together espied and identified 
Mercurialis annuus, a first find to both. A day or two later he 
brought me from an inland bog a fine tuft of the delicate and lovely 
ivy-leaved Campanula, of which I had préviously seen but one poor 
specimen. I well recollect, too, the loving pride with which he 
introduced to me his youngest boy, whom I had not before seen. 
Love of children was one of his chief and most attractive 
characteristics. Much of his poetry is about them or for them. 
‘Barmouth ’—in ‘ Poems ’—belongs to somewhere about 1879. 
It is one of several capital humorous pieces included in the same 
volume, of which, perhaps, ‘The Three Pundits’ may be accounted 
best. It is an address to the ‘ Men of Barmouth,’ by ‘An Aggrieved 
Visitor,’ protesting against a high wall by the roadside which cut off 
the splendid river view, and the disfigurement of their noble rocks 
by bill-posters. In the way of rhyming it is rather a four de force, 
for the fifty-four lines of which it is composed all (with a few 
Tepetitions) rhyme together with perfect smoothness. 
From that wall, so gaunt and bare, 
Four and twenty inches pare ; 
And from all the rock-slabs there 
Those atrocious posters tear. 
Partly in connection with the death of our friend Mr. D. C. Davies, 
before alluded to, in August 1887, I received several letters from 
r. How, now Bishop, all from Barmouth. On the 13th he wrote :— 
“I find the plants here over, or burnt up, except a few. I never 
saw the Jnula Helenium so fine as this year. The Asplenium 
lanceolatum is still to be found, but, owing to the depredations of 
visitors, or perhaps more to the sale of ferns all through the season, 
there is not a tenth of what there used to be, and the Osmunda, 
which was abundant up every little valley, is all but extinct. I found 
afew plants of Asplenium marinum two or three days ago, a mile or 
so from Barmouth. The Génothera diennis is more abundant than 
of old on the sand-banks.’ 
The closing paragraph of the same letter gives a pleasing picture, 
illustrative of what I have said concerning the Bishop’s love of 
ildren :—‘ Last Sunday I had a delightful children’s service on the 
sand-hills—about 200 coming to it, besides, perhaps, 100 adults. 
y sung delightfully, and it was very pleasant. I am to repeat the 
Process the next two Sundays, if fine.’ : 
Learning that I was not then possessed of any specimens of 
Inula Helenium, Bishop How was good enough to walk out one 
Oct. 1897. 
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