Summer is sweet, ay, summer is sweet-
Minna mine with the brown brown eyes :
Red are the roses under his feet,

Clear the blue of his windless skies.

Pleasant it is in a boat to glide

On a river whose ripples to ocean haste,

With indolent fingers fretting the tide,

And an indolent arm round a darling waist

And to see, as the western purple dies
Hesper mirrored in brown brown eyes.

Summer is fleet, ah, summer is fleet

Minna mine with the brown brown eyes:

Onward travel his flying feet,

And the mystical colours of autumn rise. VOL. I.

1

Clouds will gather round evening's star-
Sorrow may silence our first gay rhyme-
The river's swift ripples flow tardier far

Than the golden minutes of love's sweet time :
But to me, whom omnipotent love makes wise,
There's endless summer in brown brown eyes.

WHAT is pleasanter than to loiter? I have in my time loitered in many places-on the Boulevards, on Brighton Pier, in St. James's Street, in the gallery of the House of Commons, in the 'Happy Island in Bloomsbury,' on the terraces of Rydal Mount with William Wordsworth, in the purlieus of Covent Garden at sunrise with James Hannay, in the depths of the New Forest, and by the margin of the haunted river Dart, alone. In the pleasant dialogue between Horace and his slave Davus (Satire ii. 7), the slave tells his master that there is no more harm in stopping to look at the grotesque caricatures of the time than in standing full of admiration before a painting by Pausias a real old master,' since he lived about 370 B.C.

translates:

Conington

'Davus gets called a loiterer and a scamp;
You (save the mark !) a critic of high stamp.'

I shall be content if readers of my future 'loiterings' place me half-way between the

form me that the reason of it all is that there are spots on the sun. The centre of our solar system suffers from some eruptive disease. This is all very well: but one can't help wishing that the celestial orbs were free from sublunary diseases, and that it were possible to get a little enjoyable sunshine during these long Midsummer days. I recollect a letter of Walpole's beginning-Summer has set in with its usual severity.' The phrase would apply well to the current year. Shall we ever again have a cold Christmas and a hot Midsummer? Or have the four seasons started a joint-stock company (limited), with special arrangements that when Summer wants to take holiday, Winter is to be his locum tenens?

Among the abominable atrocities of middle

class life, few are worse than the frightful decorations which are to be seen in fireplaces when fires are not burning. When we consider the variable nature of our climate ('tis the 24th of June, and I am thawing myself as I write by a fire of Wallsend and laurel logs), it really seems unnecessary to block up fireplaces at all. Of the 365 days of the year, are there five on which a fire would be unpleasant? However, if people will cling to the foolish old belief that there is sometimes Summer in England-and will, therefore, shut up their grates—I have a suggestion to make. Instead of hideous aprons of coloured paper, put in front of each a fender of ferns. I have recently seen this done with admirable effect. There is nothing commoner than the fern— and nothing more beautiful.

The other day, walking along a solitary rural lane, I met a fellow with a truck load of tortoises. They were a shilling each, so I bought one. The man assured me that

tortoises had a tremendous appetite for snails and slugs, and that I had only to turn the

reptile he sold me loose on my lawn in order to see his destructive power. I have turned him loose on the lawn. He basks in the sunshine, when there is any: when there isn't, he draws his head into his tortoise-shell den, and sleeps serenely. As to eating snails, it is simply a myth. I put a snail in front of him: the creature, void of fear, walks over his head, and proceeds to transact its own business. However, a tortoise is an amusing animal to watch its laziness is perfection.

Being just now in villeggiatura, I hear many wise remarks from my bucolic friends about the weather. The farmer who got his hay in before the recent rains rejoices over his neighbours whose crop lies soaking over many acres. However, it has been a great hay crop. The momentous question is, how will this weather affect the wheat? Wheat wants sunshine and, although it may matter little if it gets a small allowance thereof in June, a deficiency of sunshine in July would be a heavy blow to the crop-and, therefore, to the country. We want a good harvest. Specula