N our early English poetry the love of nature throbs with a passionate impulse. It borrows its inspiration from the changing skies, the singing streams, and the woodland shadows. The "merry greenwood" is its constant theme. It is always chanting the glories of hill and dale, of the flowerenamelled leas, of the fragrant sward, and the grand old trees with their wealth of foliage. I sometimes think that our ancestors must have enjoyed an outdoor life with peculiar keenness. What with jousts, and hawking, and hunting, and shooting at a mark, they must have passed two-thirds of their days under "the blue canopy of heaven!" Their poets expressed for them the delights of the summer hours. Shakspeare exclaims,