COUNTRY LIFE
THE news that Knutsford is to be converted into a model township will send most minds on a quick journey to Cranford and Mrs. Gaskell. Though I have been familiar with the originals of her old ladies (by conversation with. those who knew them well), Knutsford sends me to the works not of a novelist but of a poet, of Lord de Tabley. One of the most gracious features of the new town is to be a mere. Now the neighbourhood has many meres, always so-called. It is the home of the word and the thing, and though Tennyson liked the word, he is, to my view, outdone in description by Lord de Tabley, who lived by Tabley Mere, one of the loveliest, and neighboured by a lovely hall. He has never, in my opinion, won quite the admiration he deserves ; so, by way of propaganda, I take leave to quote one whole verse of his " Royal Aspects of the Earth ":
" A change: the moon descends to shake A veiny glory through the leaves: The vivid martin strikes the lake: The country, like a wood of sheaves, Is bordered round the cup-like mere ; Green-hoary alders near the wheat Move their crisp glister: shade and clear Shed changes on the water sheet."
The description is Tabley Mere. Some perhaps would be inclined to say that the " wood of sheaves " resembles rather a faggot, for stag- headed oaks and great elms, from whose roots the salt mines have sucked support, tell a sad tale. Nevertheless, the meres remain lovely, and are a great haunt of birds, most exhaustively studied by Mr. Coward, one of our very best observers.
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