SELBORNIANA. 
135 
pinnacle. “ It is discouraging to read how Wordsworth was, for the most part, 
regarded by his contemporaries, but there are parallel cases, and their name is 
legion, to be found from the Christian era, to go no further back, downwards. 
We read of a greater than Wordsworth that ‘ He came unto His own, and His 
own received Him not.’ The effect of the critiques on the Excursion,” &c. , &c. 
(p. 135). “ The highest authority tells us that when the Divine Exemplar died ‘ the 
veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom,’ &c. 
With regard to the death of Wordsworth, we are not told that even the ominous 
raven croaked ” (pp. 204-5). 
We had intended to say a few words on the language in which the book is 
written, but that is surely plain enough from the few extracts already given. We 
can only warn all lovers of nature, of literature, and of Wordsworth against this 
volume. 
SELBORNIANA. 
Scaring away the G-ray’s-inn Rooks.— F. T. W. Goldsmith writes to 
the of May l6th, from Verulam-buildings : — “For hundreds of years these 
beautiful gardens have boasted a colony of rooks. These rooks have just been 
driven from their old home by an act of the benchers. The Society is erecting a 
corrugated iron monstrosity in the part of the gardens where they have built, and 
the unfamiliar noises attendant upon the work, added to the glare of the corru- 
gated roof and walls, have so frightened the birds that they have all taken flight. 
The injury to the rook colony is greater, inasmuch as the yet unfledged birds are 
starved owing to the eviction of the older ones. The question is, how to get the 
birds back ? A similar exodus took place some years ago, when a few of the 
older trees were felled, but owing to the hue and cry raised the felling was stopped, 
and some of the birds fortunately returned. If the corrugated iron shed now 
being put up were at once pulled down, and the gardens restored to their normal 
condition, it is very possible that our rooks would come back. The Society have 
in late years done so much to beautify the Inn that all who, like myself, are 
dwellers here are amazed that such a blot should ever have been begun, or even 
contemplated.” 
“ Beware of Man-Traps and Spring-Guns.” — Such was the ominous 
warning fastened to the trees which bordered the woodside copses, and other 
places where as a child I loved to wander, to watch the squirrel as he nimbly 
jumped from tree to tree, or listen to the carolling of birds and the soft cooing of 
the turtle-dove as he sat by his mate on her two glossy white eggs. I longed to 
enter the little wicket-gate used by the keepers in going through the narrow- 
ridings of the w'ood, and learn more about the beautiful creatures which had filled 
my mind with admiration ; but the thought of tripping against a secret wire of a 
spring-gun, or stepping on the trigger of a man-trap, to be held in mangled con- 
dition until discovered by one of the dreaded keepers, always had the desired 
effect of keeping me at a respectful distance from the forbidden ground. But as 
I became older I began to regard these notices as we do the fairy tales of our 
youth, and I have since often accompanied the keeper on his rounds through these 
same woods. Not long ago, while sitting under the shade of some trees in a 
mossy and secluded nook of a little copse of one of the pretty villages in Kent, 
I became interested in watching the graceful and delicate form of the sweetest 
minstrel of the grove, the nightingale, as he flitted in and around his shady bower, 
often bursting into snatches of wild and ravishing melody. My attention was 
drawn away to the stump of a large tree, cut to within three to four feet of the 
ground. Beautiful green moss appeared to be growing upon it, on which were 
laid four or five thrush’s eggs. I was about to examine further when my suspicions 
became aroused, and, picking up a stick from the ground, I touched one of the 
eggs. Up sprang the naked jaws of a strong steel trap, which cut the strong stick 
asunder. This trap had no doubt been set by some cruel person to catch jays and 
other birds accused of destroying pheasants’ eggs, &c. , and w-ould assuredly have 
severed my hand from my arm had I placed it on the eggs. Children and 
