BOOKS FOR CHRISTMAS. 239 
spring to Fall (Blackwood, 3s. 6d.), which will form a welcome addition to many 
Selbornian libraries. 
Judging from the first part, Messrs. Cassell have made an attractive addition 
to their long list of serials in The Story of the Sea, for which Mr. Quiller Couch, 
better known as “ Q,” has been secured as editor. Sixty-four lavishly illustrated 
pages for yd., with a large plate thrown in— we often wonder what becomes of 
these cumbrous bonuses which the publishers lavish upon purchasers of first 
numbers — cannot be considered dear, and it is safe to predict a large sale for this 
publication. Messrs. Partridge send us the brightly bound volume in which the 
yearly numbers of the Band of Mercy are brought together. This cannot fail to 
be a welcome school prize, even in places where the excellent Bands are not 
established. 
Lady Lindsay’s poems have always received a welcome in these pages, and 
her last volume. The King's Last Vigil (Kegan Paul, 6s.), contains a great deal 
of charming and musical verse. Lady Lindsay, like Mrs. Hinkson (Katherine 
Tynan), whose verses have been quoted more than once in these pages, is a born 
Selbornian, and it is this quality which makes a notice — too brief lor justice — of 
her poems necessary in Nature Notes. Besides a curious variant of the story 
of St. Francis and the birds, in which the birds do the preaching, we have the 
legend of St. Dol, of which we give a part, thus allowing the book to speak for 
itself : — 
“ One day — it was at hot noontide — 
His spade full long St. Dol had plied — 
He cast his hooded cape aside. 
“ He softly laid and spread it where 
The white boughs of a blossomed pear. 
Like ships’ sails, stretched in balmy air. 
“ Scarce had he done this, when a bird 
Among the leaves beside him stirred ; 
A tiny wren he saw and heard. 
“ She sought a nest, she sought to find 
A sanctuary to please her mind, 
A haven from all rude touch shrined. 
“ Here was a white and holy tree, 
A row of lilies fair to see, 
A home as sweet as sweet might be. 
“And whiter seemed the snow-white hood 
Worn by God’s saint so pure and good : 
This be her nest — let come what would. 
“ She laid her egg and knew no fear ; 
The gentle saint who stood so near. 
To him were all God’s creatures dear. 
“ He dropt him down on bended knee. 
To glorify the Lord that He 
Had bid the wren so fearless be. 
“ The sweet bird sang without a dread. 
As from the raiment peeped her head. 
Untouched they left her self- sought bed — 
“And there, unhurt, she bred her young, 
The smiling awe-struck monks among. 
The legend flew from tongue to tongue 
“Through every nook of Normandy. 
And all who could came forth to see 
The hooded cape, the fruited tree.” 
A severe critic might point out that the poems are of unequal merit, and that 
even Lady Lindsay cannot be allowed to think that “full inch” rhymes to 
“bullfinch” or “sound well” to “groundsel.” But no critic would be slow 
to acknowledge the many charms of this dainty little book. 
