IT is a delightful idea delightfully carried out, this notion
of making a composite of English country life by using essays, natural history and extracts from novels. But we could have done with twice as much material and with some of it a tilde more far-fetched. We know the inevitable answer, but mean* while every reader can find a pencil and begin his list of additions. Of course, we must have that fine passage describing Lad! Dedlock looking out at her dripping parklands while the long empty afternoon wears away - certainly there should be some Dorothy Wordsworth, and that description of the farmer's mid- day dinner (with the mice) in Amaryllis at the Fair. And there should be more, much more, Trollope. We could do with° Miss Mitford's weak watercolours and the nervy intensity of Mary Webb. The .vast field of Journals and Diaries rernaills untouched: Kilvert and Torrington are obvious choices. It is interesting to see how vividly the D. H. Lawrence extract stands out here ; and there is a brilliantly sharp description of a dear ing country mansion from The Book of Snobs, as fresh and amusing as the Scott extracts are doughy. The prints pictures are all (but one) contemporary (eighteenth and nineteen century) and are pleasantly unhacluieyed.
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