COUNTRY LIFE
Salving England
Salvation proceeds at an accelerated pace. Bits of the soul of the country are made safe week after week. The National Trust has just secured a most essential part of the circle of one of the loveliest of the lakes in Cumberland ; and, on the South Coast, which matters supremely, some special emphasis is due to the gift of land and a pathway close to Sidmouth and to Salcombe. Dr. Vaughan Cornish, who was the chief giver, has the reputation of being the first man to analyse the attributes of scenery and propound the philosophy of their influence on the mind of man. C. J. Cornish (who was one of the best known of writers in The Spectator in Mr. Strachey's day) was one of the most charming historians of both the Thames and the New Forest ; and Dr. Vaughan Cornish, writing in a very different manner, is known as one of the chief preservers —on paper—of the English landscape. It occurred to him not long since that a deed might be even better than a word, and, with the co-operation of his brother, he put the thought into action. Mr. Clough Williams Ellis, the author and begetter of the Society for the Preservation of Rural Wales, had done a like thing a little earlier. It is not often that those who write and speak can so practise what they preach and by such means make their preaching very much more
effective.
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