Morgan George Watkins

“ In these days of new theories we must not be astonished at the rise of new sciences. One or two of them, at least, are yearly born of hypothesis and experience. Social Science is still a babe in arms; Ethnology, Comparative Philology, and several more are hardly released from the nursery. Meteorology, however, is growing like a young giant. Many writers have dabbled in it from Aristotle to Lord Bacon; but from its very nature, composed as it is of numerous observations, time and opportunities of comparison were needed before it could be elevated to more than a piece of empiricism. ”

“ Would you moralise on the lawn’s green expanse with the great modern interpreter of nature?—learn, then, the secret of humility from the grass before you. Its very end is to be trodden under foot, and yet it rises stronger after it. Mow or roll it as much as you will, and it only sends up thicker shoots. Even in winter it is always green, always cheerful; type of perpetual youth and perpetual freshness, its very uniformity like a reflection of the unclouded sky above. Truly they were wise men, those old monks, who loved so much a spacious courtyard of grass! ”

“ In the well-watered, well-timbered neighbourhood of Sopwell the dame may have found inducements to follow the field-sports which are inseparably connected with her name and the 'Boke of St. Albans.' A century after her time, Mary Queen of Scots displayed the same passionate enthusiasm for hunting and hawking which animated so many high-born ladies during the middle ages. In any case, the dame could solace herself with her treatises among the ruthless succession of battles, treasons, and executions which marked the wars of the Roses, and from which her own kith and kin had not escaped. ”

“ The fireside forms the centre of an Englishman’s idea of home during winter, and in summer his garden, and undoubtedly the largest share of his affections is there given to his lawn. The hotbeds belong to the gardener, the flowers to his wife, but his special delight is to survey the smooth-shaven expanse of turf from his window, and saunter over its soft surface lord of all he surveys.
A well-kept lawn is a peculiar feature of our domestic life. ”

“ Nothing in the animal or vegetable world came amiss to his insatiable love of nature; he would dwell with warm appreciation upon the adaptation of every animal and every part of its frame to its surroundings, point out the singularities of every specimen that came before him, and thus draw others unconsciously to the practical study of natural history. The native birds, beasts, and fishes lost a friend and protector when Buckland died. ”

“ Curious are the transformations visible down this coast from disintegration. Often gigantic columns and huge masses of rock and marl are left standing in the sea, like champions from whom the main line of cliff, which does battle against the waves, has retired. ”

“ As we pass by their graves the tender hare-bells and sweet-scented clover tell of nothing but what is beautiful and of good report. We cannot then quarrel with buried foibles, and “sit tibi terra levis” is our only thought. Thus I would rather not mention the true character of last summer in Devon, and the watery weeks of the present one, so far as it has yet advanced. Their souls have passed into the daisies of Time’s grave, and I would fain only recal them as glad summer hours of sunshine and bee-murmurings, and pleasant lime-tree fragrance, and airy whisperings of the mountain firs. ”

“ Of course there is pleny of sunshine, where else are you to look for it if not in Devon? Sometimes stealing gently over the land from the distant peaks of Dartmoor, and streaming over meadow, lawn and moor, with its gentle influences, it lulls all nature into serenity, only broken by the hum of insects, which seems reflected in the seas round the coast, as the gentle ripple just stirs their blue expanse. ”

“ All weather-wisdom depends upon the principle that Nature never gives false signals, that her laws are invariably true; we cannot interpret them, or we interpret them wrongly. Averages, statistics, observation, instruments, &c., are all helps to a surer interpretation. In proportion as our knowledge of Nature increases, and our instruments are better understood, so will meteorology extend her sway. Thus it has been proposed to give storm warnings to ships in the offing by means of coloured lights. ”

“ It is a wild, lonely spot, falling away from varying heights into the sea, with huge chalk blocks glittering under the waves like the cherished hopes of a summer dream; and from the distant shelves of Beer Head you may catch the faint croaking of a raven warning you against putting too much trust in your bright visions. ”

“ Though to the sportsman Siluria will be most pleasing in winter, when the snipe rises from every wet meadow, and a woodcock may be flushed in every other coppice, we venture to recommend it in its summer dress to everyone tired of home and business. Then the wheat-ear flits over the commons, and the mountains look greener and brighter than at other times, for the light strikes up from the cultivated vales below, and is caught on their rugged sides. After spending a few days in Siluria, we prophesy that your notions on the country will be revolutionised. ”

“ No time to free him now; the net is piled over him. Murmurs of admiration run through the crowd, countless shoals of sprats are being dragged in, some dart through the meshes and so escape, others leap over the net in their fright, the sea is alive with them. Most of them are stranded on the beach, however, where the small boys fill their baskets. Here is the first mackarel entangled by his gills in the meshes! there is another. Now for the last pull! A shout breaks forth, and a panting heap of flapping mackarel, a thousand in number, though they only seem two hundred, is dragged on the shore. ”

“ FOOTSTEPS OF SPRING.
As soon as the shortest day is past, most people look out for spring. There is a certain gratification in computing from the almanack how many more minutes of daylight each morning brings, though our eyes, even if we scan the east as critically as the new weather prophets look for a “high” or “low” dawn, can discern no difference. Most men would also plead guilty to catching at the faintest gleam of sunshine, when the year has once turned, as the earliest smile of spring. These delights are at the best short lived. Soon February lays his iron grasp upon the earth ”

“ Summer brings its showers as well as April, and if I dislike, as much as you do, the unvarying rains of last year, I gladly welcome many a stray shower. We cannot put up with perpetual ill-temper even in the greatest beauty, but willingly abide her chance caprices of smile and frown. And if you insist on a southern serenity, always brooding over Devon, the deep azure would rob my favourite county of half its charms. It is impossible to obtain its cloud-scenery unless you welcome these passing showers. ”

“ Let us conclude these legends with one of special interest to the ladies. For the peace and quietness’ sake of the poor wolves in the Zoological Gardens, we have half a mind to forbear; but remembering the fate of Orpheus, and having once aroused a woman’s curiosity, perhaps the safer plan will be to go on. Well, then, there is a love-charm of peculiar virtue resident in one hair of a wolf’s tail. It is even more potent than the fabled hippomanes, more quick than the drug the “caitiff wretch” of an apothecary sold Romeo in his need. Alas, that we should throw any obstacles in a lady’s way! ”

“ As our orchids and ferns are our closest link to tropical vegetation, so the stag-beetle, from its habits and economy, forms the best British representative of the myriads of beetles that prey on the foliage of hot climes. It is by no means so scarce as many other of our large insects, and thus may hope to escape extinction at the hands of those enthusiastic collectors who bid fair to thin the ranks of British insects as their brother ornithologists have helped to exterminate many of our native birds. A true naturalist always prefers an animal at freedom to its mummy in a glass case. ”

“ On Cornwall’s coast I must land them to-night,
Or I dare not face the morrow!”
“Ah! stay this night—but once I pray!”
“I may not linger, sweet!”
One kiss, and he speeds to the gusty shore,
But the spirits are far more fleet.
Afloat is his skiff, to her gunwale sunk
(Though empty to mortal sight) ;
He hoists her sail to the furious gale,
And drifts into blackest night.
Strange shrieks, deep groans from the boat resound—
The ghosts who have died to day—
Babes, women, and men—they wail as they sail
From their loved ones far away. ”

“ None of the ancients seem to have appreciated the luxury of a lawn. Homer praises the fabulous gardens of Alcinous, but they were more what we should call orchards. The Grecian idea of a garden was a sacred grove planted with flowers to supply garlands for the deities, while the Romans thought less of lawns than of fountains and rows of stately trees shading terraced walks. It was only in the Elizabethan era with ourselves that grass began to be considered a component part of a garden. The tilt-yard passing insensibly into the bowling-green, as the days of chivalry died out, left us the lawn ”

“ At the present season when, turn which way we will, we are so strongly reminded that the year is in its sere and yellow leaf, it is impossible to view these autumn leaves without remembering Mr. Millais’s beautiful picture of their dying grace. And then, because all art tends to call forth solemn emotions, and is not indeed worth the name of art unless it implants in us higher thoughts and calms the world-wearied spirit, we naturally fall into a few serious reflections respecting the withered leaves which strew our path. ”

“ I need not describe the visitors promenading underneath us, the scientific searching for anemones near low-water mark, while the idle ones watch them from above, maliciously hoping that a chance wave may break over them—visitors are always the same at a sea-side place. Perhaps more hats and novels distinguish them here from others, for the sun is stronger and the climate softer than elsewhere. One local guide-book proves to its own satisfaction, I see, that Ilfracombe is as cool in summer as any other English town, and in winter actually half a degree warmer than Torquay! ”

“ It seems to span the whole of life in an instant. Memory flies back to the days when, as a child, you sported on such a lawn, and looks on to the time when, seated old and feeble by its edge, some one who may be slumbering all unconscious as yet in the neighbouring wing, shall catch your lightest fancies and forestall your every wish. And, last scene of all, the level turf before you is inseparably connected with final rest. ”

“ As if to compensate for the havoc they make with tender plants, they are admirable fertilisers of a lawn, constantly withdrawing the surface-earth and piercing the soil in all directions, so much so as in a few years entirely to change its surface.
Without worms in our lawns we should have no blackbirds or thrushes haunting them, and to most people birds are peculiarly associated with lawns. Watching their strange ways is an untiring source of quiet pleasure. ”

“ But now that we are diverging to the romantic, we cannot better end our summer tour than by visiting the Haunted House of Chambercombe. It is just the place for a ghost, hidden among trees, and smothered by the foliage of narrow lanes, and withdrawn from the haunts of men. ”

“ This is the weather in which Devon looks its best. This is spring, almost visibly flushing into summer. The constant alternation of light and shade brings out the varied tints of the foliage and the splendour of the wild flowers to perfection, while the sun is not too hot to rob you of their enjoyment. ”

“ White of Selborne remarks that all lopped trees, while their heads are young, carry their leaves a long time. In the garden, currant-bushes and laburnums decay first, even while the foliage round them is still green. Indeed, most fruit-bearing trees and bushes begin to lose their leaves as soon as the fruit is mature. Apple trees, however, are an exception, the young summer shoots fluttering their bravery of verdure through all the early frosts until quite the end of November. When these leaves fall the pruner knows he may use his knife. ”