BEAUTIFUL ENGLAND

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21562, 5 August 1933, Page 9 (Supplement)

BEAUTIFUL ENGLAND

LAND OF ENCHANTMENT Tho modern discovery of England has been carried a step further, and this time by Thomas Burke, writer of descriptive.pdiwer and lover of England as the centuries have made her. It seems strange, though there is no valid reason why it should, that tho writer of " Limehouso Nights and " Tho Real East End " should prove himself an experienced observer of the countryside and an experienced traveller in the byways of rural England. How wide his knowledge of this realm is the reader of " The Beauty of England " will soon discover. And a keen joy awaits • the discoverer. Starting with an essay on " The English Scene," the author takes one on a journey of enchantment through most of tho counties until practically the whole of the country has been covered. With gossip and reminiscence he smooths tho way, and where desecration of the scene is encountered he does not hesitate to enliven the journey with verbal sledge-hammer asides. And then ho passes on to the demonstration of still further beauty. For his assurances the reader, unable to see for himself, will be grateful. He soon makes it evident that, in spite of tho spoliation which follows misdirected progress, England is still a land of rich and rural charm and that the motoring speedmaniac has not discovered half of it. He sever will, or so it seems, for so much of this real old-England lies off the speedster's path. " Kent, though suburban at its north-west and goodness knows what at its coast resorts, also keeps in its interior many a little pocket of the natural Kent," says tho author. lives still a country of foaming orchards, of primrose and bluebell woods, of sedate, unostentatious villages, and of littlo surprises waiting to be discovered." Nowhere, "the writer says, do tho gardens achieve such " aching loveliness " as in Herefordshire, county of " black and white villages and town; of orchards and, by implication, Hereford cider." But to attempt to summarise such a wealth of descriptive detail as he gives would be a, formidable task. The outstanding fact remains that the type of village which inspires the designers of chocolate box illustrations and Christmas cards is still to be found in England in its hundreds. The book which delivers this welcome message will make the colonial long to go and seo for himself. It will make tho Englishman overseas feel homesick. " Tho Beauty of England," by Thomas Burke. (Harrap.)