AN OLD WOMAN'S OUTLOOK.*

WE have already recognised the merit of this remarkable little book in a brief notice in our impression of March 4th, but the book is so admirable that we are unwilling to let it pass without a further and more adequate appreciation.

Miss Yonge has hardly written anything more charming than this Hampshire calendar. It is full of the keenest and closest observation of Nature ; and not only the nature of woods, fields, and lanes, but the human nature she has known in her village through the changes of many years. None of the severities of Science, one need hardly say, are to be found in the little book ; there is nothing dry or analytical, and yet we feel in reading it that a real depth of Nature-knowledge, of that best kind gained by love, lies behind the result so lightly and pleasantly given. And the interest of the book is far from belonging solely to the district of which it is a chronicle. It is a universal and fascinating lesson of the Eyes-and-no-eyes" kind ; but besides this, much of its minutely careful observation of trees, plants, birds, animals, and weather may be verified in other parts of England ; and more than this, it is an inspiration to work of the same kind in other counties. Occupied in such a study, the quietest life can never be dull.

Miss Yonge begins her chronicle with the new year, taking the months as they come, though her book is far from being the experience of one year only. There is an old-world ring about the beginning which takes us back to old women in scarlet cloaks and children in grey duffle. Snow, in any great quantity, is not common in South Hampshire, and yet, with its downs and woods and copses, it is a country where snow shows all its terrible beauty. One great feature is the abundance of evergreens, fir, holly, and yew ; the lines of dark yews in a hedge or across a field, or standing in some lonely, moss-carpeted glade among beech-trees, add a touch of picturesqueness all their own to the Hampshire landscape, and a sort of ancient humanity. Yews always look as if some former civilisation had left them there, gone away and for- gotten them, and as if they were not quite understood by their present surroundings. The fact is, their strong red trunks belong to the days of archers, and bring, more strongly than any other English tree except the oak, an impression of the Middle Ages with them. And the winter is certainly their season, when their solid dark- ness is conspicuous among the bare branches of the forest trees. But with Miss Yonge we walk in the woods and fields throughout the year, following the varieties of trees through all their changes from one beauty to another. One feature of Hampshire is the hazel copse, not in itself, perhaps, very beautiful, but a wood for the fairies ththnselves in that height of spring-time when the sun shines through its delicate thicket on ground literally carpeted with prim- roses, wood-anemones, and blue violets. Later the orchis and woodruff and woolsorrel grow there, with a more curious and hidden charm. But if we begin to follow Miss Yonge among all the wild-flowers which bloom along her walks through this Hampshire year, our walk will lead us beyond bounds to-day. The birds, as one might imagine, have a great part in this calendar. The woods and copses of South Hampshire are a paradise of birds, and they can here be watched through all their ways and cbanges from one month to another. This country has a great variety of birds, migratory and others. Miss Yonge tells several curious bird-stories, among which the wise rooks find their deserved pre-eminence

"The trees within a cathedral close had been inhabited from time immemorial, but never those beyond its recinots, until a pair were daring enough to co deuce a nest on a new tree out- side the close. At first the nestnaw

underwent

being pulled to pieces by the oldwent the inevitable fate of council was held on the grass Within e ilbutthafterbwlards a e. sable re com- munity attending, and siounedo'seg, all

their caws

Finally—this really is true—a patriarch with 111!3t feathers in poll gave his opinion, and forthwith the newwtrieeewasea adopted and and filled with nests, while one of the old trees was deserted.

* As Old 'Woman's Oellook ic a Hampshire Viilage, By Charlotte M. Yonge. London; Macmillan and Co, 1892. Moreover, this ancient elm was blown down in an ensuing storm

The white-marked senior, who was respected by all the town, fell a victim to one of those wretched beings who carry guns, and cannot Bee a curious bird without marking it down for slaughter."

There is a good deal that is curious and pretty about robins, and the superstition connected with them, and the fierce temper which makes them "fight to the death in the woods." The poor, despised sparrows, irrepressible, whose heads- " sparer heads," " sprow heads "—used to be paid for by dozens in the Church accounts, seem down to quite recent times to have been the objects of exterminating hatred in Miss Yonge's village. An old retired farmer "succeeded several times in reducing them to one,"—but this one always found a mate the next day, and the sparrow-tribe flourished as before. Here is a marvellous story of two thrushes, who

together charged a peacock in the throat and knocked him down, finding him too near their nest. Altogether, the birds are among the most attractive dwellers in this Hampshire country, and the most interesting subjects of its chronicle.

Frogs, toads, snakes, insects, everything that is alive,—all are found worthy of a place, and in every instance we have some new proof of Miss Yonge's sympathetic observation; none of these "happy living things" come amiss to her. She has seen a great many carious sights in the course of acquaint-

ance with the wild creatures of her district ; few, perhaps, more curious than this narrow escape of a frog :— " Once, as a snake was crossing the lawn, it was pursued and driven, whereupon, in order to be free to move, it opened its jaws and emitted a frog, then wriggled away rapidly. The frog lay pulled out at full length, a ghastly spectacle, and we were just about to have it removed, when—behold, it drew in first one leg, then the other, contracted itself into a respectable frog, and hopped off as if nothing had been amiss."

Miss Yonge has seen a snake swim across a pond, and another climb a tree; and she remembers an old man in the workhouse, under the old Poor-Law, who used to make viper broth, and send in, when he had a nice snake, to ask for a bit of bacon to boil with it. The human part of this " outlook " is by no means the least interesting. The Hampshire village has had its full share of "characters," and they are drawn with all the

delicate appreciation that was to be expected. The most touching picture is that of the good baker, who afterwards became clerk and schoolmaster, besides doctoring the village with herbs, and who was so terribly upset by the first threat of school inspection that he drowned himself in the river. One asks oneself whether new educational ideas were worth the overbalancing of that sensitive, old-fashioned brain; but all reform has its tragedy.

The outside appearance of every month in the year is given to us in charming bits of description, which blend quite easily with the facts in botany and natural history that fill these pages. Thus, living in this Hampshire village from January to December, we know its wood's quite well in all their varying glory, we can find our way among its lanes and copses, over

the downs, past the chalk-pits, down to the picturesque marsh where so many rare flowers grow. It may be safely said that there are few people in England with the genius to make such a chronicle of the few miles round their home. Miss Yonge's new book ought to be in the house of every one who loves birds, beasts, and insects, trees, flowers, and stones, the earth and the sky—for we have the stars, too—or that cares for old customs, quaint country sayings and doings, now quickly passing away for ever.