CHEAPSIDE TO ARCADY.
Chcapside to Arcady. By Arthur Scammell. (Andrew Melrose. 6s, net.)—The greater part of the contents of this volume is now Published for the first time, but sense of the chapters have appeared in the Nature Book, in Country Life, and in the Idler Magazine. Those titles indicate the character of the book. Mr. Scammell writhe about rue, as in "A Surrey Valley," "An Oat
Field," "The Plough," and sometimes about no urbe, as in "Idyllic Battersea," "Hyde Park," and "City Trees." Whether be is treating of this theme or of that, he is always delightful. If we were to choose that which interests us most we should say the "City Trees"; what would seem quite commonplace in a field or wood gets distinction when it stands in contrast with its urban surroundings. Is there any tree in the world so well known as the Plane in Wood Street, Cheapside ? Was there over nest so watched as that which the rooks need to build there not many
years ago P Mr. Scammell, we see, gives expression to a common sentiment when he laments the lopping of elm trees. In Regent's Park, he tolls us, they have escaped this fate. Yes ; but then the Regent's Park trees are young ; the difficulty arises when they grow old. The writer of this notice has had to acquiesce in, even to order, the lopping of noble trees. But what is to be done ? The elm is dangerous, for its boughs fall, by choice, one might say, on a still summer day. And if the fall should injure or kill, what an unending remorse! With "City Trees" we should rank " Elm Tree Magic," where some children see a vision of what their city home looked like a century before. But there is not one of the essays—twenty-two in number—which has not a charm of its own.
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