24 SEPTEMBER 1932, Page 12

Country Life

THE SCENERY OF ENGLAND.

It has been said that Lord Avebury spoiled a great title when he wrote The Scenery of England and made of it a sort of textbook of superficial geology. A short but altogether delightful attempt to live up to the title has been made by Dr. Vaughan Cornish, the apostle of national parks. His Scenery of England is published by and for the Council for the Preservation of Rural England (17 Great Marlborough Street, W.1. 3s. 6d.). The proceeds will go to protect the scenery which is described. It is, of course, impossible to describe the scenery of England in short compass, for it is elusive and various beyond finite grasp, but it is just possible to indicate the skeleton and suggest how it is filled out, how clothed, with house and battlement as well as with field. and wood. As Lord Crawford says, Dr. Cornish " provides us with a philosophic basis for the aesthetics of scenery."

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