THE NE W LA UREA TE. 
25 
lionour, is appropriate to the coming month, and with it we 
must close our selection. 
PRIMROSES. 
L<itest, earliest, of the year. 
Primroses that still were here, 
Snugly nestling round the boles 
Of the cut-down chestnut poles, 
When December’s tottering tread 
Rustled ’mong the deep leaves dead ; 
And with confulent young faces, 
Peeped from out the sheltered places 
Where pale January lay 
In its cradle day by day. 
De.ad or living, hard to say ; 
Now the wind-March blows and blusters, 
Out you steal in tufts and clusters. 
Making leafless lane and wood 
Vernal in your hardihood. 
Other lovely things are rare. 
You are prodigal as fair. 
First you come by ones and ones. 
Lastly in battalions ; 
.Skirmish along hedge and bank, 
Turn old Winter’s wavering flank ; 
Round his flying footsteps hover. 
Seize on hollow, ridge, and cover ; 
Leave not slope nor hill unharried. 
Till, his snowy trenches carried, 
O’er his sepulchre you laugh, 
Wintei’s joyous epitaph. 
After all, it is not Mr. Austin’s fault that he follows two 
poets. He will probably do very creditably all that is required 
of him, and if his verses do not achieve immortality — well, most 
of the Laureates who preceded him may claim him as a brother. 
By the kindness of Pvlessrs. Macmillan, we are enabled to give 
an illustration of Swinford Old Manor, the house to which is 
attached the delightful garden which forms the subject of Mr. 
Austin’s books, previously noticed in these pages.* 
“ Carnage or Sport ?” — The following letter from Colonel Coulson appears 
in the Daily Chronicle of December 8th : — “ We seem to be losing our manliness 
or self-respect. Every day now tells of some hideous slaughter of semi-tame 
pheasants, sandwiched in with hares and rabbits. The narrations are as sickening 
as they are distressing, as mean as they are unsportsmanlike. At one big ‘ shoot ’ 
lately, 8,900 pheasants were mowed down in three days. At another 1,3000! 
these birds were killed in three-quarters of an hour ! Slaughters like these, and 
they are of daily occurrence, are turning sport into a cruel mockery ! Sending a 
score or two of these meanly-killed birds to a hospital in no way palliates the 
offence, for such it is. And there are always large numbers wounded that, owing 
to the shortness of the days and the ground to be covered, are left behind slowly 
dying, creeping about the woods and ditches in all stages of wounds, and suffering 
a silent agony that words cannot convey to the understanding. Left, alas ! for 
days a sad spectacle, and a reproach to man’s— ay, and woman’s — callous 
indifference to suffering.” 
See W.A^., 1894, 130; 1895, 216. 
