22 
NATURE NOTES. 
Selbornians, however, have less cause for dissatisfaction than 
others, for in the new Laureate they have one w'ho, in prose and 
verse, has sounded melodiously enough the praises of the things 
they delight to honour. In this respect, at any rate, Mr. Austin 
may claim continuity with his great predecessors ; and if we miss 
in his verse the depth of thought which characterized the one, 
and the numberless delicate touches, the exquisite music, which 
distinguished the other, we feel that he is, in his measure, as 
true a nature-lover as either. And it is as a Selbornian in the 
spirit, if not in the letter, that we are able to welcome the new 
wearer of the laurel crown. Lord Tennyson was long President 
of the Selborne Society; Mr. Austin, if we may judge from his 
writings, cannot refuse to become a member of it. 
It is probably a doubtful compliment to praise a verse-writer 
by profession for the excellence of his prose, but it is as 
the historian of his garden that Mr. Austin has appeared in 
these pages. Yet here again his former utterances rise up in 
evidence against him ; for in the same volume from which we 
have already quoted, we find the future historian of Veronica s 
Garden, and The Garden that I love — a title taken from the author 
whom he so severely criticizes — telling us that poetry “ has 
nothing to do with gardens and garden-seeds, trim parterres, 
new variations, and watering-pots.” “ Garden poetrj',” he says, 
“ besides being imitable, is variable and subject to fashion, 
whim, caprice. Shakespeare, Byron, Shelley, have nothing 
to do with gardens and gardening ; their concern is with the 
permanent aspects of Nature.” 
Still, it is in these books about gardens and gardening that 
we find Mr. Austin at his best, just as in his first effort since 
his promotion * we have him at his worst : and from his 
garden books we propose now to select a few not unfavourable 
specimens of the work of the new Laureate. 
Here is a sonnet from Italy which touches the home-note. 
-A. DREAM OF ENGLAND. 
Here, where the vine ."ind fig bask hand-in hand. 
And the hot lizard lies along the wall, 
Blinded I shrink where cypress shadows fall. 
And gaze upon the far-off mountains bland : 
Then down the dusky track Lorenzo planned. 
Watch the slow oxen oscillating crawl 
Sleek in the sultry glare, and feel withal 
Half alien still in a familiar land. 
But when from out the stone-pine slopes that rise 
In the clear ether, bl.ack against the blue, 
The cuckoo .suddenly calls, I close mine eyes 
In visionary ra|)ture, think of you, 
Hear the home-music of your Kentish skies 
And dream that I .am drenchetl with English dew, 
“ Bland ” does not seem in keeping with “ the far-off 
mountains,” it is rather one of those tributes to the exigencies of 
• “Jameson’s Ride. 
