The Open Air

ngle black wing, striking the ground instead of the air; indeed, it seemed to come out of the earth itself, the body of the bird

ry afternoon as the sun gets low to discuss the scandals of the day, before retiring to roost in the avenues and tree-groups of the park adjacent. While we looked, a peacock came round the corner of the barn; he had caught sight of the flapping wing, and approached with long deliberate steps and outstretched neck. "Ee-aw! Ee-aw! What's this? What's this?" he inquired in bird-language. "Ee-aw! Ee-aw! My friends, see here!"

, the brown autumn sward, a grey horse, orange maple bushes. There was the quiet tone of the coming evening-the early evening of October-such an evening as the rook had seen many a time from the tops of the trees. A man dies, and the crowd goes on passing under the window along the street without a thought. The rook died, and his friends, who had that day

eld down by his own weight. He had probably died from picking up poisoned grain somewhere, or from a parasite. The weather had been open, and he coul

ours, on a rail in the hedge under a spreading maple bush. His rich-hued neck, the bright light and shadow, the tall green meadow grass, brought together the finest colours. It is curious that a bird so distinctly foreign, plumed for the Asiatic sun, should fit so well with English meads. His splendid neck immediately pleases, pleases the first time it is seen, and on the fiftieth oc

d in sport. He is good eating, but he is not beautiful. After the eye has been accustomed to him for some time-after you have fed him every day and come to take an interest in him-after you have seen a hundred turkey-cocks, then he may become passable, or, if you have the fancier's taste, exquisite. Education is requisite first; you do not fall in love at first sight. The same applies to fancy-pigeons, and indeed many pet animals, as pugs, which come in time to be animated with a soul in some people's eyes. Compare a pug with a greyhound strai

to say that there is no nation so thoroughly and earnestly artistic as the English in their lives, their joys, their thoughts, their hopes. Who loves nature like an Englishman? Do Italians care for their pale skies? I never heard so. We go all over the world in search of beauty-to the keen north, to the cape whence the midnight sun is visible, to the extreme south, to the interior of Africa, gazing at the vast expanse of Tanganyika or the marvellous falls of the Zambesi. We admire the temples and tombs and palaces of India; we speak of the Alhambra of Spain almost in whispers, so deep is our reverent admiration; we

rse-and English girls do love their horses most intensely-is infinitely more artistic in that fact than the cleverest painter on enamel. They who love nature are the real artists; the "artists" are copyists, St. John the naturalist, when exploring the recesses of the Highlands, relates how he frequently came in contact with men living in the rude Highland way-forty years since, no education then-whom at first you would suppose to be morose, unobservant, almost stupid. But when they fou

ing. For fifty or sixty yards the path was worked with an inextricable design; it was a pity to step on it and blot out the traces of those little feet. Their hearts so happy, their eyes so observant, the earth so bountiful to them with its supply of food, and the late warmth of the autumn sun lighting up their life. They know and feel the different loveliness of the se

ing; the elm is green except a line at the outer extremity of its branches. A red light as of fire plays in the beeches, so deep is their orange tint in which the sunlight is caught. An oak is dotted with buff, while yet the main body of the foliage is untouched. With these tints and sunlight, nature gives us so much more than the tree gives. A tree is nothing but a tree in itself: but with light and shadow, green leaves moving, a bird singing, another moving to and fro-in aut

est, barest, most miserable-looking square of ground the eye can find; the only piece of ground from which the eye turns away; for even the potato-field close by, the common potato-field, had its colour in bright poppies, and there were partridges in it, and at the edges, fine growths of mallow and its mauve flowers. Wild parsley, still green in the shelter of the hazel stoles, is there now on the bank, a thousand times sweeter to the eye than bare iron and cold evergreens. Along that hedge, the white bryony wound itself in the most beautiful manner, completely covering the upper part of the thick brambles, a robe thrown over the bushes; its deep cut leaves, its countless tendrils, its flowers, and presently the berries, giving pleasure every time one passed it. Indeed, you could not pass without stopping to look at it, and wondering if any

fined flowers are full of imagination, products of a sunny dream, and tinted so tastefully, that although they are green, and all about them is green too, yet the plant is quite distinct, and in no degree confused or lost in the mass of leaves under and by it. It stands out, and yet without violent contrast. All these beauties of form and colour surround the place, and try, as it were, to march in and ta

hich I forget at the moment, also trained to the walls; and ivy. Altogether, six plants grow up the walls of the cottage; and over the wicket-gate there is a rude arch-a framework of tall sticks-from which droop thick bunches of hops. It is a very commonplace sort of cottage; nothing artistically picturesque about it, no effect of gable or timber-work; it stands by the roadside in the most commonplace way, and yet it pleases. They have called in Nature, that great genius, and let the artist have his own way. In Italy, the a