ALTHOUGH NATURE and art are no doubt here to stay, the nineteenth century has for some time now been getting on in years. In the lead article in this issue, Carl Woodring is concerned with all three—art, nature, and the nineteenth century—but from the perspective of our own decade, writing the kind of literary history that attempts, at least in part, to see ourselves as others have not yet seen us. Recognizing that “the road we are trying to repair passed through nineteenth-century travail,” Woodring relates current attitudes to nineteenth-century concerns with ai t and nature, concluding that today both Wordsworth's environmentalism and the selfsufficiency of Oscar Wilde are still alive. Woodring is by no means the first to ponder such matters, but the range and lucidity of his recapitulation make the essay valuable to specialist and nonspecialist alike; we all have a vested interest in art and nature and all come trailing at least some clouds of glory from the preceding century. The essay has energy and philosophic insight in large measure, and abundant instances of Woodring's wit (“In their ignorance and folly, the Romantics missed a great opportunity to be as miserable as we are”).