THE WOODS, AND THE FIELDS. AUTUMN VOICES OF THE GARDEN, OB, THE TEACHINGS OF NATURE AS SEASONS CHANGE. BY THE AUTHOR OF "SUCCESS is LITE," "MEMORIALS OP EARLY GESIUS," "EVENIX9S WITH THB POETS." BTC. " The world leads round the seasons in a choir. Blending the grand, the beautiful, the gar, The mournful and the tender, in one strain. LONDON: T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW; EDINBURGH ; AND NEW YOKK. PREFACE. To the enlightened eye every scene of beauty is a trans- parency through which the glory of God is seen ; and the ear of faith can hear the voices of Nature singing the praises of God in one harmonious strain. " All his works praise him." " Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth forth knowledge. There is no speech nor lan- guage where their voice is not heard." The song of the birds, the whisper of the gentle breeze, the " stormy wind fulfilling his word," and the loud roll of the thunder, unite in softer or louder tones in one harmonious song of praise to him who made them all. There are also silent voices, which those who listen aright can hear. "Mountains and all hills ; fruitful trees and all cedars ; beasts and all cattle ; creeping things and flying fowl:" all that he has made " praise the name of the Lord ; for his glory is above the eartli and heaven." The object of this book is to aid the student in Nature's school to listen to these voices, and understand aright the lessons which are to be learned as each season presents its ver-changing succession of pictures to the eye. God has connected moral lessons with each season; but to understand those aright, they must be studied with the light of his written Word. In the following pages an attempt is made to guide the student in thus learning to read the "Teachings of Nature as Seasons change." 234 CONTENTS. SPRING. Chapter Page J. The First Awakening, ... ... ... ... 23 II. The Lengthening Day, ... ... ... ... 28 III. The Soil 42 IV. Vegetable Life, 48 V. The Young Plant, 6J VL The Root. ... ... .. ... ... ... 58 VII. The Seed-Time, ... ... ... ... ... 63 VIIL Insect Life and Instinct, ... ... ... ... 74 IX Eggs of Insects, ... ... ... ... ... 82 X. Parasite'Insects, ... ... ... ... ... 89 XI. Gall-FUes, ... ... ... ... ... ... 95 XIL Pairing of Birds, ... ... .. ... ... 102 XIII. Eggs 01 Birds, ... 114 XIV. Rearing the Yonng, 120 XV. Characteristics ot the Season, ... ... ... ... 131 SUMMER. I. The Maturing, 145 II. The Atmosphere, ... ... ... ... ... 154 III. Growth of Plants, 163 IV. Tiie Flower, ... ... ... ... ... ... 174 V. Organization of Plants, ... ... ... ... 181 VI. Microscopic Organic Structure, ... ... ... 187 VII. Insect Metamorphoses, ... ... ... ... 198 VIII. The Arachnidans, ... ... ... ... ... 209 IX Insect Communities, ... ... ... ... ... 219 X Interposition of the Creator, ... ... ... ... 239 XL Vertehrated Animals, ... ... 255 XII. Functions and Habits of Birds, ... ... ... 273 XIII. Flocks and Herds, ... ... ... ... ... 290 XIV. Characteristics of the Season, ... ... . ... 298 Vlll CONTENTS. AUTUMN Chapter rte I. fhe Realization, ... .., ... ~. ... 303 II. Autumnal Vegetation, ... ... ... ... 310 III. The Fall of the Leaf, ... ... 319 JV. Cereal Plants, ... ... 322 V. The Harvest Covenant, ... ... ... ... 333 VL Migration of Birds, 339 VII. The Close of Autumn, .., ... ... ... 347 VIIL Characteristics of the Season, ... 350 WINTER. ,L The Sleep of Nature, ... ... ... ... ... 362 IL Variations of Climate, 368 III. Hybemation of Plants, 373 IV. Hybernation of Insects, ... ... ... ... 379 V. Winter Migrations, 387 VI. Aspects of Winter, ... ... ... ... .. 395 VII. The Conclusion, _ ... 403 VOICES OF THE GARDEN, THE WOODS, AND THE FIELDS. INTRODUCTION "To feel, although no tongue can prove, That every cloud that spreads above And veiletb. love, itself is love." TENNTSON. THEBE are two books which the Creator has furnished for the instruction of man in the knowledge of himself; the one is the Book of Nature, and the other the Book of Revelation. Both, however, may justly claim the title of books of revelation, and it is as such that we are now to consider the Book of Nature, seeking to arrive at an in- telligent appreciation of the abundant proofs which it discloses of beneficent design, and of the elevated ideas which it unfolds to us of God as the creator and governor of the universe. " The Works of God and the Word of God," says the Rev. William Kirby, " may be called the two doors which open into the temple of Truth ; and as both proceed from the same Almighty and Omniscient Author, they cannot, if rightly interpreted, contradict each other, but must mutually illustrate and confirm, 10 T \TRODUCTION. though each in different sort and manner, the same truths." It is requisite, however, that the student of the Book of Revelation proceed to the investigation of its truths, in a spirit of teachableness and modest diffi- dence of his own limited powers of comprehending Divine things, and such is even more needed in studying this Book of Nature which we are seeking to unfold, since it is avowedly an inferior and less perfect revelation, and one which the rash and ill-informed student is still more liable to misinterpret, or read wrong. The Bible alone points out the way to God so clearly, " that the wayfar- ing man, though a fool, may not err therein ;" and there- fore it is that, in order to understand the voice of God in creation, we ought to enter the temple of nature with the Bible in our hands. Many causes have combined in our own day to give a new impetus to the study of the Book of Nature, and perhaps none more so than those great political changes which originated in the first French Revolution. By that overthrow of old prescriptive rights and conventional for- mulas, it is not to be doubted that the human mind re- ceived a fresh impulse, which has led to many important, and not a few beneficial results. Old systems which had grown corrupt in the lapse of centuries, or had stood still and become effete and mischievous, while all around them were advancing with the march of time, were suddenly thrown loose, like a pendulum held by force out of the perpendicular, which we need not wonder should be found to fly far beyond its centre of gravity, and to oscil- late with violent vibrations ere it attain to its natural re- pose. We accordingly find, that in the renovated zeal for the study of nature, the value of the results came to be overestimated, and sceptical philosophy sought to supersede Divine revelation by discoveries of its own. Hence has originated a new system of creation, built up on a false pretence of honouring God, by regarding (ho 1 1 works of his hands as too insignificant for his notice, and ending with not a few in the fancied discovery of some sufficient first cause by which the Divine Creator may be dispensed with altogether. Foremost among these modern philosophic sceptics must be ranked two of the most distinguished men of science of France, La Place and Lamarck, who have agreed to displace the Divine Creator, by a chance-ori- ginating force for which they persuaded themselves no cause need be sought. Yet in the very outset of this godless system of science the necessity of a first cause has to be admitted. " An attentive inspection of the solar system," observes La Place, " evinces the necessity of some central paramount force, in order to maintain the entire system together, and secure the regularity of its motions." Mr. Kirby has well remarked, in commenting on this : " One would expect from these remarks, tliat he was about to enforce the necessity of acknowledging the necessary existence of an intelligent paramount central Being, whose goings forth were co-extensive with the universe of systems, to create them at first, and then maintain their several motions and revolutions, so as to prevent them from becoming eccentric and interfering with each other, thus Upholding all things by the word of his power. But no when he asks the question, What is the primitive cause ? instead of answering it immedi- ately, he refers the reader for his hypothesis to a conclud- ing note, in which we find that this primitive cause, instead of the Deity, is a nebulosity originally so diffuse, that its existence can with difficulty be conceived. To produce a system like ours, one of these wandering masses of nebulous matter distributed through the immen- sity of the heavens, is converted into a brilliant nucleus, witli an atmosphere originally extending beyond the orbits of all its planets, and then gradually contracting itself, but at its successive limits leaving zones of vapours, 12 INTRODUCTION. which, by their condensation, formed the several planets and their satellites, including the rings of Saturn !"* The self-originating theory of creation thus assumed by the French philosopher has found a willing phalanx of advocates since, who seem to find it easy to believe any thing except the Bible. In full accordance with this vague and unsatisfying idea of causation, is what has been styled the theory of development, which has been adopted by timid sceptics, unable altogether to dispense with an originating creator, and yet strangely conceiving it most consistent with the honour of the Supreme Being that his works should progress through all their higher changes uncontrolled by his interference, and unaffected by his will. The psalmist devoutly exclaims, " When I consider the heavens, the work of thy hands, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained, what is man that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man that thou visitest him?" Far different, however, from the spirit of humility that instigated such an exclamation of pious and adoring wonder, is that of the modern philosopher, who admits of a Divinity to set his works in motion, and then requires that he shall stand aside, and leave them to the further developments which may be educible from this supposed originating impulse. " There is a philo- sophy," it has been justly remarked, " which nobly exer- cises our reasonable faculties and is highly serviceable to religion : such a study of the works of God as leads us to the knowledge of God, and confirms our faith in him. But there is a philosophy which is vain and deceitful, which sets up the wisdom of man against the wisdom of God, and, while it pleases men's fancies, hinders their faith." It is therefore most needful in the outset of our undertaking that we discriminate between the daring pophistry which substitutes human theories for faith, and makes of reason a Supreme Divinity, and the truthful * Kirby'g History, Habits, and Instincts of Animals, p. xx. INTRODUCTION. 13 earnest spirit of inquiry, which questions nature, only that its faith may be confirmed, and its devotion enlivened by fresh manifestations of the Divine attributes. Let it then be understood in the outset that we seek to interpret the Book of Nature, because we discover in its records the same handwriting as that which traced for us the Book of Grace, with its wondrous scheme of Divine love and mercy. It is in the latter only that we can fully trace the Divine benevolence which yet shines through all the works of God. In creation we perceive innumerable evidences of goodness, tenderness, and mercy, but what are the most perfect of these when compared with that revelation, which shows us a holy God looking down in compassion on the unholy, and conceiving the plan by which justice was to be reconciled with the justification of the ungodly. The arguments derived from natural theology are, in fact, of a secondary nature, and alto- gether subsidiary to the other ; nor can we turn them to a good account, or justly interpret their meaning, till the mind has become thoroughly imbued by that living faith which springs from the gospel of God's love and mercy. Amid the elder nations of the world, the Greeks stand foremost for learning, arts, poetry, and science, and pre- eminent among the states of Greece was Attica, with its magnificent capital : the seat of all that was most beauti- ful and rare among the highest productions of human in- tellect. Taught by her philosophers, Greece had learned Irom Socrates and Plato, and the wisest of her sons Epicureans, Pythagoreans, or Stoics, all that uninspired wisdom could teach ; nor has the unaided wisdom of later ages yet superseded the writings of Plato as a guide to that full conception of God, of the human soul, and the eternity to which it aspires, of which unaided reason is capable. In the centre of the area round which the ruined temples of ancient Athens are still traceable, rises the lofty Acropolis, or citadel, with the marble columns of its 14 INTRODUCTION. magnificent Parthenon ; and to the east of this, separated from the Acropolis only by a narrow valley, is the Areopagus, or Hill of Mars, on the eastern and highest extremity of which was the court of the Areopagus in the times of Athenian liberty. In the first century of our era, a learned Asiatic, a native of Tarsus in Cilicia, visited Greece, proclaiming to its philosophers truths unheard by them before. He visited Amphipolis, Apollonia, Berea, and Thessalonica, but in each were found those who scorned the teaching of the Asiatic, and ejected him from their city. In the course of his journey, this learned native of Asia, Paul of Tarsus, was conducted to the chief city of Attica, the seat of Athenian philosophy and arts ; but it was with no sense of delight that he witnessed the fruits of its profane wisdom. We are told that while Paul waited for his companions at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him when he saw the city wholly given to ido- latry. Therefore disputed he in the synagogue, and in the market daily with them that met him. Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoics, encoun- tered him. Some said, " What will this babbler say ?" Others, " He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods I" because he preached to them Jesus and the Resurrec- tion. They conducted him accordingly to the Areopagus, or Hill of Mars, which rose conspicuous amid the splendid edifices of their magnificent city, and standing around him there, they said, " May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is? for thou bringest certain strange things to our ears: and we desire to know what these things mean ;" for all the Athenians and strangers who were there spent their time in nothing else but either telling or hearing some new thing. Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. INTRODUCTION. 15 Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. God, that made the world, and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwell- eth not in temples made with hands ; neither is wor- shipped with men's hands, as though he needed any- thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things ; and hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath deter- mined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation ; that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: for in him we live, and move, and have our being. As certain also of your own poets have said : For we are also his offspring. Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at ; but now commandeth all men every- where to repent : because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained ; whereof he hath given as surance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. The sacred historian who has recorded this most inter- esting narrative, adds : " When they heard of the resur- rection of the dead, some mocked ; and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter." Such, then, were all the fruits of Athenian philosophy ; with a Plato, a Pythagoras, and a Socrates, to reason of the soul, of immortality, and the sources of created things, God was to the Athenians an unknown being, and the resurrection of the dead a subject of idle mockery. From this the inference is inevitable, that mere human wisdom and natural theology are vain, without the aid of inspired teaching, nor can all the deductions of philosophy from the Book of Nature teach us the simple gospel doctrine 1G INTRODUCTION. of life and immortality, or tell us the mysterious source of evil, suffering, and death. If, however, we are content to look upon nature as an inferior, and altogether imper- fect revelation, which must be studied in the light of higher truths, we shall find in it much to interest and in- struct, and shall derive new views of the wisdom and goodness of God from the investigation of his works. It is in this spirit that we now propose to proceed to study them, believing that while the Bible, and the Bible alone, is the revelation of God's will to man, whatever has proceeded from his hands will be found to reflect some evidence of his divine attributes, and to manifest some tokens of his supreme wisdom, benevolence, and power. The argument of apparent design, on which all natural theology is built, must now be familiar to most readers. It may be simply stated under these two propositions : First : that design, or the adaptation of means to an end, exists in nature ; and, second : that the existence of design implies, of necessity, the existence of a designer. The argument has been thus stated by Dr. Prout : " Animals in cold climates have been provided with a covering of fur. Men in such climates cover themselves with that fur. In both cases, whatever may have been the end or object, no one can deny that the effect, at least, is the same : the animal and the man are alike protected from the cold. Now, since the animal did not clothe itself, but must have been clothed by another ; it follows, that who- ever clothed the animal, must have known what the man knows, and must have reasoned like the man ; that is to say, the clother of the animal must have known that the climate in which the animal is placed, is a cold climate ; and that a covering of fur, is one of the best means of warding off the cold : he therefore clothed his creature in this very appropriate material. " The man who clothes himself in fur to keep off the INTRODUCTION. 17 cold, performs an act directed to a certain end ; in short, an act of design So, whoever, directly or indirectly, caused the animal to be clothed with fur to keep off the cold, must likewise have performed an act of design. " But, under the circumstances, the clother of the ani- mal must be admitted to have been also the Creator of the animal ; and by extending the argument ; the Creator of man himself of the universe. Moreover, the reason- ing the Creator has displayed in clothing the animal, He has deigned to impart to man, who is thus enabled to re- cognise his Creator's design." By the same course of reasoning, we are also enabled, in some degree, to determine what is the character ot that Designer and Creator whose works thus lie open for our inspection. Yet here, in an especial manner, we discover the imperfection and inadequacy of our means to such an end, and are led to exclaim, in the language of that ample revelation by which its incompleteness is made up, "Who, by searching, can find out God ? who can find out the Almighty to perfection?" We behold, in nature, the varying change of seasons ; the Winter, with its chill frosts, and deadly snow-drifts ; its leafless trees, frozen streams, and stormy blasts of driving sleet and snow ; yet also with its sleep of inanimate life, as a healthful repose from which all is to awake again at the voice of Spring. With the reviving season come also, doubtless, at times, the chilling frosts which destroy the early blossoms, and defeat the fond hopes of the husbandman arid the gar- dener ; yet, as a whole, it is truly the season of hope, and it fails not in an ample realization of its promises. The Summer, also, in many climes, has its disappointing blights, its chill east winds, and unexpected floods in northern regions, its droughts and pestilences in warmer climates ; but it also satisfies, in the main, the character of annual maturity, and fitly ushers in the season of har- vest the Autumn, with its golden grain, its ripened B 13 INTRODUCTION. fruits, its clustering grapes, and all the beneficent rewards which repay the industry and skill of man. Such is the course of the seasons ; some miscarriages and disappoint- ments, some blights, floods, frosts, hurricanes, or deadly failures of crops, in which the lean years eat up the over- plus of many plenteous seasons ; and, like the ill-favoured kine of Pharoah's dream, when they have eaten them up, it could not be known that they had eaten them, but they are still ill-favoured as at the beginning; yet, on the whole, good predominates, and the promise does not fail, that, while the earth remaineth, seed-time, harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease. Apart from the history of our own race, it seems that the course of nature exhibits to us, if not a perfect and unchanging succession of goodness and mercy, yet such a predominance of benevolent provision as satis- fies the inquiring mind in the product of all by a benefi- cent God. Still it is well that at the outset of such an inquiry as we are now undertaking, we should fairly deal with this fact, that storms and blights, hurricanes and tempests, abortive spring times and unproductive harvests do occur; and more than this, that amid the most lovely scenes of animated nature, pain and suffering, disease and death, are familiar to all. If we are to study the book of nature honestly, and to seek to derive from it true re- plies to our inquiries concerning the nature of God and the character of his works, we cannot overlook these, be- cause they have long since attracted the attention of ear- nest inquirers, and have been the source of much per- plexity, doubt, and error. It will clear the way for a just appreciation, not only of the true evidence of the book of nature, but of its right place among the proofs which we possess of the character of God, and the ends of his design, if we fairly meet this difficulty at the outset. In a valuable article published in the British Quarterly Review, entitled: "Chemistry and INTRODUCTION. 19 Natural Theology;" the following most apposite remarks occur: " The co-existence in this world of life and happi- ness with suffering and death, leads directly to two ques- tions Do animal happiness and animal suffering flow from the same source? Is an evil as well as a good being at work in the world? "In ancient times, and in different countries, a sect existed, known best to us by the title of Manicheans, who held that an evil as well as a benevolent power had a share in the control of all things on this earth. By those holding such a view, all the evil would be referred to the Caco-demon, or malignant agent, and all the good to the Agatho-demon, or good being. The Indian, Persian, Egyptian, and later Alexandrian schools were full of this doctrine. The greatest men of antiquity, however, held no such view, but referred the evil and the good to one source, counting the former either a result of the necessary imperfections of the world-system, or acknowledging it to be a mystery inexplicable. We refer to such opinions, because we think that it is very difficult for us, who con- sciously or unconsciously, have had all our notions of God modified by what we have learned of him from the Bible, to be certain what conclusion we should have come to, if we had not enjoyed the benefits of a direct revelation. We are certain, however, that science lends no support to a Manichean doctrine. The evil and the good in nature are inextricably intertwined, and cannot be unravelled or disentangled from each other. What is evil in one aspect is good in another, and the two must be taken together, and dealt with as a whole. "We have no apprehension, accordingly, that the deep- est study of any of the physical sciences will lead to the conclusion that this earth exhibits the results of divided counsels, or that such a lesson will ever be taught, as that the happiness of the lower animals is an expression of God's will, and their sufferings the contrivance of soma 20 INTRODUCTION. antagonistic evil demon. All science, we believe, will, with increasing distinctness, join in proclaiming, with Revelation, that 'the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof.' It will then only remain for science to make the fullest proclamation that evil exists, and the frankest confession that she cannot account for it. A dark reality is often more tolerable than a grievous doubt; a hopeless mystery disturbs the spirit less than a difficult, though quite soluble, problem. There are many excellent people afraid, in the face of our natural theologies, to say that physical evil exists, lest they should be thought to impeach God's goodness, and yet troubled by the conviction that evil there is. Let such be emancipated from their bon- dage, by hearing the student of physical science ex cathedra declare that in this world there is 'shade' as well as 'sun- shine ;' and for those who never could be cheated into the belief that evil was not, or was good, and who stand astonished at its existence, let there be reply also. So long as men look upon the origin and existence of moral or physical evil as a problem which can be solved by logic, they will struggle to the very death to reach the solution ; but when they discover that in this world a solu- tion of the difficulty cannot be attained, they will cease to combat with it, and transfer it from the region of the in- tellect to that of the heart, as a sad and solemn mystery which, with closed lips, will haunt them to their graves. " Let such hear science acknowledge, that if Plato and Socrates, Aristotle and Galen, could mid no plummet able to reach the depth of the mystery of the existence of evil, Newton, Laplace, Herschel, Dalton, or Davy, have not been able to add one inch to the fathom-line, or make it go deeper. They may then, after looking the existent evil in the face till they cease to fear it, perceive that it does not swallow up the good or reduce it to zero, but simply disturbs and perplexes it ; but whether they reach tluB conclusion or not, let the truth be plainly spoken and INTRODUCTION. 21 acknowledgment frankly made, that after all our natural theologies and prize essays, our eight commissioned Bridgewater Treatises, and ninth volunteered one, physi- cal science must acknowledge that suffering is an enigma which she cannot unriddle. Chemistry, for example, can prove that God is light, but not that ' in him is no dark- ness at all;' she can show that God has love, but not that he is love. Before that can be demonstrated to us, to borrow a beautiful idea of Bacon's, we must pass from Vulcan to Minerva; we must turn our backs upon physics and upon all human science, and gaze in another direction, ere we shall be able to affirm that ' the darkness is past and the true light shineth,' or comfort ourselves with the assurance that ' life and immortality are brought to light.' The mystery of pain will haunt our whole lives, and will probably never be felt so keenly as when we are tasting the bitterness of death, and are about for ever to exchange the pangs of this life for the unknown conditions of the life to come. Meanwhile, we are certain that God's bene- volence is as infinite as his other attributes, and cannot doubt that some great purpose is served by the suffering of innocent animals. It may yet be given to us to know what it is. And even in this world, all who believe in revelation may contemplate with a joyous eye the good that is in it, and adjourn the explanation of the evil as something traversing, but not neutralizing or annihilating its opposite. Suffering and death may veil, but do not blot out an all-merciful God from our view. The curtain is thick, but light shines through, and words of hope are uttered to all who have ears to hear them. ' Be still, and know that I am God.' ' I form the light, and create dark- ness.' ' I make peace, and create evil. 1 ' I have created the waster to destroy.' ' I will swallow up death in victory.' " The true inference then from the perplexing discrepan- cies of the Book of Nature, is not that the benevolenco 22 INTRODUCTION. and perfect love of God are controlled by some evil power, but that the Book itself is an imperfect revelation, never designed as a display to man of the perfections of the Creator, but only as a very few leaves out of the great volume of the universe, wherein the Creator has inscribed, and is still writing so many proofs of his vast, all-sustain- ing, but incomprehensible perfections. To us, the dwel- lers on this little globe of earth, one of the smallest amid the myriad worlds that move in space, God has given this Book of nature, suited to our wants, and limited to our capacities ; but with it he has given us the Book of Reve- lation, also containing only a small portion of the know- ledge of himself which is vouchsafed to some created in- telligences, but revealing enough to satisfy all the wise demands of the soul, and beyond this, pointing to the veil, yet to be withdrawn, within which are the things which eye hath not seen nor ear heard, but which are destined for the participants of the promises therein contained. Let us then proceed to the study of all the wonders and the mysteries which the revolving seasons disclose, not in the spirit of proud scepticism or self-sufficiency, but as modest inquirers, who, already taught by the word of God, that his perfections know no conflict, and his com- passion changeth not, seek in his works the opportunities of devout admiration, and not of suspicious questioning or unbelieving fear. SPRING. Thou wak'st again, Earth, From winter's sleep! Bursting with voice of mirth From icy keep; And laughing at the son, Vv'ho hath their freedom won, Thy water's leap! CHAPTER I. THE FIRST AWAKENING. ACCORDING to the artificial sub-division of the year, the mouth of February marks the departure of winter and the opening of the sweet season of spring. In our own native climate of Britain, however, it is at best but a season of hope and promise; and he who will soberly compare his own experience with the rapturous language in which poets indulge, must be strongly tempted to accuse the poets of self-delusion or falsehood. Too many of our native poets have indeed studied the descriptions of the classic muse, rather than aimed at depicting the aspects which they themselves yearly witness, and hence the dis- crepancies to which we refer. The lavish pictures of mildness and beauty which the poets of the seasons have expended on February, would be exaggerated il soberly spoken of May; and where Thomson, for ex- ample, thus apostrophizes spring, we might not unfairly g-i SPRING. date much of his details, not in the fickle month of Fe- bruary, but late in the sweet midsummer sunshine of leafy June : Come gentle spring, ethereal mildness, come, And from the bosom of yon dropping cloud, While music wakes around, veiled in a shower Of shadowing ro*s, on our plains descendl And see where surly winter passes off Far to the north, and calls his ruffian blasts; Whi.'e softer gales succeed .... Along these blushing borders bright with dew, And In yon mingled wilderness of flowers, Fair-handed spring unbosoms every grace; Throws out the snow drop and the crocus first; The daisy, primrose, violet darkly blue, And polyanthus of unnumbered dyes; The yellow wall-flower, stained with iron brown, And lavish stock, that scents the garden rounilt From the soft wing of vernal breezes shed Anemones : auriculas enriched With shining meal o'er all their velvet leaves; And full ranunculus, of glowing red. There are few springs of our variable northern climate in which we could read these glowing lines of the poet without contrasting them most unfavourably with the chill realities around us. The truth is, our poets have derived such pictures from classic fancy or Italian climes. Beneath the sunny sky of Italy the opening season of the year presents such delights of temperate breezes, bright blue skies, the perfume and beauty of a thousand variety of flowers, and the bursting verdure clothing hill and vale with the robes of spring. It is in such southern climates the most delightful season of all the year, warm without being oppressive, and more lovely in its wild and luxuri- ant simplicity than all the carefully nurtured exotics of a northern hot-house. But with us spring is the time ot hope rather than of realization, and like our own season of youth, delights us far more with promises than perfor- mances. It is fitted rather to supply to the poet the em- SPRING. THE FIRST AWAKENING. 25 blem of human joys which are so much more frequently found to rest in the anticipation of the future than in con- tentment with what is. To the invalid the cold east winds of spring are more trying than all the previous rigours of winter, and even the healthy pedestrian who has rejoiced in the invigorating frosts of October, shivers beneath the untimely sleet, or biting winds of February. It borrows, moreover, not unfrequently from the winter; and keen frosts, snow- storms, sudden drifts, the terror of the shepherd, and equally sudden thaws and floods, with hoar frosts, sleet, or violent hail, are all chai-~ieristic of this fickle, de- ceitful, and most cheerless month of the year. The peculiar characteristic of the month, however, is damp and fog; and an old Scottish proverb, which still com- mands implicit faith among the rustic population of many northern districts, thus refers to the second of February : If Candlemas day Is fair and clear, There'll be t\va winters in the year. Candlemas Day, a memorial of the old services of the Romish Church, falls on the 2nd of February, and should it pass over without rain or snow, the rustic weather- prophet believes the worst of the winter is still to come j while, on the contrary, the more wild and tempestuous the weather proves on that day, it is reckoned the more pro- pitious for the coming summer and autumn. Even the final giving way of the snows and frosts of winter contri- butes to the. cheerless aspect of February. The clear frosty air of winter, however sharply it be felt, seems to add to the cheerfulness of the fireside, and to give a beauty of its own to the desolate face of nature ; but the moisture and heavy dews of a spring thaw seem to beget a dreariness that nothing can escape. Clothes, books, papers, the chamber walls, the wardrobes, chests, and 26 SPRING. floors seem all affected by the universal damp; and, whether in town or country, the only comfort is in the conviction that the winter is past, and the promised spring is at hand. Coleridge, no second-hand poet, has written some touching and truthful lines on observing a blossom on the 1st of February : "Sweet flower! that peeping from tliy russet stem Unfoldest timidly, (for in strange sort This dark, frieze-coated, hoarse, teeth-chattering month Hath ton-owed zephyr's voice, and gazed upon thee With blue voluptuous eye,) alas, poor flower! These are but flatteries of the faithless year. Perchance, escaped its unknown polar cave, E'en now the keen north-east is on its way. Flower that must perish ! shall I liken thee To some sweet girl of too, too rapid growth, Kipped by consumption 'mid untimely charms ?" Yet while the opening month of spring is thus de- formed by many heirlooms of winter, and its flowers seem a premature offspring, born but to perish by untimely frosts, these also are a part of the beneficent system of successive seasons, each in its turn bearing a share in the needful changes of the revolving year. Ungenial as the dawn of spring appears in our rigorous climate, there are not wanting pleasing symptoms that the year has past its descending point, and is advancing, however grudgingly, towards the genial season of returning life and beauty. A pleasant fancy as to the origin of the snow drop, the pale harbinger of spring, has been woven into some beau- tiful stanzas, by a dear friend of the author. Picturing the stormy skies and winter's fury bursting over the earth, sifter the expulsion of our first parents from paradise, when God had cursed the ground for man's sake. He has thus pictured the first impression which winter might pro- duce on the former dwellers in the sinless paradise, and then followed it up with the poetic fancy which intro- THE FIRST AWAKENING. 27 duces the snow drop as the promise and firstling of Uie spring : ' And when at last the driving snow, A strange, ill-omened sight, Came whitening all the plains below; To trembling Eve it seemed affright With shirering cold and terror bowed } As If each fleecy vapour clond Were falling as a snowy shroud, To form a close enwrapping pall For earth's untimeous funeral Then all her faith and gladness fled. And nothing left but black despair, Eve madly wished she had been dead, Or never born a pilgrim there ; But, as she wept, an angel bent His way adown the firmament, And, on a task of mercy sent, He raised her up, and bade her cheer Her drooping heart, and banish fear : And catching, as he gently spoke, A flake of falling snow, He breathed on it. and bade it tako A form, and bud and blow ; And, ere the flake had reached the earth, Eve smiled upon the beauteous birth, That seemed, amid the general dearth Of living things, a greater prize Than all her flowers in Paradisou 'This is an earnest, Eve, to tLco,' The glorious angel said, That sun and summer soon shall be; And though the leaves seem dead, Yet once again the smiling spring, With wooing winds shall swiftly bring New life to every sleeping thing ; Until they wake and make the scene Look fresh again and gaily green.' * There are few indeed who will not sympathise in the feeling that the first snow drop of spring, seen bursting through the half-melted snow, seems to be worth all the 28 SPRING. flowers of summer. How unfit its chaste and delicate blossoms seem to withstand the chill blasts, or to endure the snow- wreaths that gather round it ; yet there it hangs its 1'ovely drooping head, The first pale blossom of the nnripen'd year; As Flora's breath, by some transforming power, Had changed an icicle into a flower. Scarcely less fragile, or unsuited for the winter season, are the bright tufts of crocuses that now appear ; followed by the hepatica, the mezereon, and the anemones ; and accompanied by the shooting forth of many green blades and bursting buds, that give evidence of the icy chains having been snapt, and of nature at length reviving from her winter's sleep. To these, in many a cheerful home, are added the lovely, though artificial children of our northern spring, the sweet scented hyacinths and narcissi, fostered in glasses, and displaying their bulbs and long fibrous roots in the water below. Yet even these, though constrained to an artificial growth, follow also nature's laws, and have their appointed times and seasons, which can only be very partially affected by the constraints of artificial tenderness and fostering zeal. CHAPTER IT. THE LENGTHENING DAY. IT is not alone in the bursting forth of the snow drop, and the clustering of the variegated groups of crocuses that the first proofs of the advancing year are apparent. The lengthening day already begins to borrow of the night, and the reinvigorated sun wheels in a widening circle through the heavens. The observation of this im- portant phenomenon naturally directs our attention to one THE LENGTHENING DAY. 29 remarkable class of operations of the laws on which the succession of the seasons so greatly depends. The divisions of time by which our daily and annual rounds of duties and pleasures are regulated, are, to a great extent, not arbitrary, but natural. Each of all the planets which revolve around the central sun of our system has its natural year, on which many of the pecu- liar characteristics of its periodic changes, and its forms of life also if such there be must depend. The planet Mercury, wheeling in its diminutive orbit, measures out the complete circle in a year of two months and twenty- eight days ; scarcely equal to the duration of one of our seasons. That of Venus exceeds our half year by little more than a month, while Mars, the first planet beyond our orbit, has a year very nearly double the length of ours. Beyond this, as each succeeding orbit widens, the planet- ary years increase in length, until we reach Uranus, the remotest of all, save Neptune, yet discovered on the con- fines of our system ; and there the distant orb, tardily moving through its appointed course, has only completed one annual lound, when eighty- four of our terrestrial years have passed away, with their successive seasons, and whole generations of men. While glancing at the general laws controlling the planetary system, in their effects on our own terrestrial seasons, it is impossible to avoid the ideas which they suggest of the varied influences of the same laws on the planets that move around us, and on the probability that their changing seasons are also watched by living beings no less interested in returning summer than we ourselves. Yet, if such be the case, how remarkable is the idea this conveys to us of the in finite power of the Creator, and the endless variety of his works. A very slight reflection suffices to show how great must be the changes wrought on each planet by its relative distance from the sun, and hence may we learn how ignorantly they have estimated fhe works of crea- 30 SPRING. tion, who conceive that such changes may be the product of blind chance. The sun shines on the planet Mercury with a force fully seven times greater than on our earth. While its annual seasons, fostered by this sevenfold heat, hurry through all the changes of the year in three of our months. If we could conceive of water, air, and the vegetable and animal life of our planet, unchanged under such a system : think of the quickening pulses of nature, the tropical growth, the speedy ripening, the harvest, winter, and succeeding spring, hastening onward ap- parently without a pause ; and then to contrast most fully the varying systems on which our sun looks down let the reader transport himself in fancy to the remote Uranus, where, while the native of Mercury had reaped his one hundred and sixty-seven harvests, and is busy with the hundred and sixty-eighth, the inhabitant of that distant planet sees but the ripening fruits of his one long protracted year. But we are warned by this of the folly of testing the universe by our own puny experience, or assuming that the great Creator has exhausted his inven- tive powers on our little sphere. The varied circum- stances which we find te pertain te each of the planets of our own system abundantly illustrate the inexhaustible resources of the Supreme Governor of the universe. We are not indeed driven to the idea that all the planets are inhabited, or that every star is the centre of a system like our own. Jt has been adopted by some good men as a hasty and extreme antagonism to the mean view of the universe which makes it all subservient to our own little planet. " But it would not be a painful, but a pleasant thing, surely, to learn that some of the stars, such as the new planet Flora, were great gardens, like Eden of old before Adam was created ; gardens of God, consecrated entirely to vegetable life, where foot of man or beast had never trod, nor wing of bird or insect fanned the breeze ; where the trees uever cracked before the pioneer's torch, THE LENGTHENING DAY. 31 nor rang with the woodman's axe, but every flower was born to blush unseen." * This question of the probable occupation of the planets has been the subject of many pleasing, and of some bold and extravagant flights of fancy. The idea of the repeti- tion in other worlds of a state of being, and of creatures similar to those of our own, is thus happily refuted by an intelligent critic : " Liie, as it exists on this globe, is compatible only with certain conditions, which may not be overstepped without causing its annihilation. The whole of these need not be enumerated, as the failure of one is as fatal to existence, as the absence of all. The three to which Sir John Herschel has referred, namely, difference in the quantity of heat and light reaching each globe ; variation in the intensity of gravity at its surface ; and in the quality of its component materials, may suffice to illustrate this. Light and heat are essential to the de- velopment and maintenance of earthly life, but their ex- cess is as destructive to it as their deficiency. What, then, shall we say of the sun, whose heat we know by direct trial to be of such intensity, that after great degra- dation or reduction, it can still melt the most infusible minerals, and dissipate every metal in vapour ; and whose light is so intolerably brilliant, ' that the most vivid flames disappear, and the most tensely ignited solids appear only as black spots on the disc of the sun, when held between it and the eye ?' If the temperature of the solid sphere or body of the sun be such as those phenomena imply, it must be the abode, if inhabited at all, of beings such as Sir Thomas Browne refers to, who can ' lie immortal in the arms of fire.' It is within possibility, however, that the body of the sun, is black as midnight and cold as death, so that as the eye sees all things but itself, he illuminates every sphere but his own, and is light to other stars, but darkness to his own gaze. Or the light and British Quarterly Review, voL x., p. 322. 82 SPRING. heat of his blazing envelope, may be so tempered by the reflective clouds of his atmosphere, which throw them off into space, tliat an endless summer, a nightless summer- day, reigns on this globe. Such an unbroken summer, how- ever, though pleasant to dream of, would be no boon to terrestrial creatures, to whom night is as essential as day, and darkness and rest as light and action. The probabi- lities are all in our favour of the temperature of the sun's solid sphere being very high, nor will any reasonable hy- pothesis justify the belief that the economy of his system, in relation to the distribution of light and heat, can re- semble ours. " We can assert this still more distinctly of the planets. We should be blinded with the glare, and burnt up, if transported to Mercury, where the sun acts as if seven times hotter than on this earth ; and we should shiver in the dark, and be frozen to death, if removed to Uranus, where the sun is three hundred times coMor than he is felt to be by us. To pass from Uranus lo Mercury, would be to undergo in the latter exposure to a temperature some two thousand times higher than we had experienced in the former, whilst on this earth the range of existence lies within some two hundred degrees of the Fahrenheit ther- mometer." * Sir John Herschel says of our satellite, " The climate of the moon must be very extraordinary : the alternation being that of unmitigated and burning sunshine, fiercer than an equatorial noon, continued for a whole fortnight, and the keenest severity of frost, far exceeding that of our polar winters, for an equal time." It would seem then, that though all else were equal, the variations in amount of light and heat, would alone necessitate the mani- festation of a non-terrestrial life, upon the sun, and the spheres which accompany the earth in its revolutions around it. All else, however, is not equal. The inten- * British Quarterly Review, voL x., p. 349. THE LENGTHENING DAY. S3 gity of gravity at the surfaces of the different heavenly bodies differs enormously. At the sun it is nearly twenty-eight times greater than at the earth. " The effi- cacy of muscular power to overcome weight, is therefore proportionally nearly twenty-eight times less on the sun than on the earth. An ordinary man, for example, would not only be unable to sustain his own weight on the sun, but would literally be crushed to atoms under the load. Again, the intensity of gravity, or its efficacy in counteracting muscular power, and repressing animal activity on Jupiter, is nearly two and a half times that on the earth, on Mars it is not more than one half, on the moon one sixth, and on the smaller planets probably not more than one twentieth ; giving a scale of which the ex- tremes are in the proportion of sixty to one." * But are we thence to conclude that amid the myriads of worlds and suns that glitter nightly in the vault of heaven, our planet alone is occupied with sentient life, while all the universe besides is an unpeopled waste? Such an idea cannot be entertained. Imagination vainly strives to comprehend the mysteries of these surrounding worlds, and " by searching to find out God." Let it suffice for us to learn thereby how infinite are the wondrous diversities of creation, while it may be that, returning from expatiat- ing on these innumerable suns that stud night's arch, to reconsider the state of our own little planet, we may in- dulge the possible thought that, amid countless worlds, teeming with life and joy, and basking each in the rays of their appointed sun, ours alone, of all the attendant planets, may perchance possess the sad pre-eminence of sin, the sole world whose inhabitants have proved rebels to God. We need not, however, wander into the immensities of space, and search with aching eyes for the footsteps of God among the stars. There are abundant traces ox the> * HerschelTs Outlines of Astronomy, p. 311. S| 34 SPRING. Divine Governor of the universe in our own little planet It is not- so insignificant as to be beneath his care. With the telescope new suns and systems have been revealed to us on the remote confines of space, but with the micro- scope it is found that a whole world of sentient life is concentred within a drop of water, or on a single leaf. We turn, therefore, with no sense of constraint, to follow the seasons in their appointed coarse, feeling assured that many volumes may be written without exhausting the lessons which they teach. As the dead season of winter passes away, and, with the lengthening day, the sunny smile of the warm sun increases in power, all nature appears to feel and to rejoice in the genial heat. There seems a harmonious adaptation of it to the requirements of nature. In our own climate we witness no violent or sudden vicissitudes such as are known within the Arctic circle or the torrid zone. It is, in every sense of the word, a temperate climate which we enjoy, and while we recog- nise the same beneficent God ruling over all his works, we may be permitted to admire the mutual adaptation of all living things to it, and of it, to them. It is true, indeed, that it is far more the adaptation of animal and vegetable life to the climate, than of it to them. The flowers, the rice, the palms of the tropics, will not grow under our changing skies; their birds and beasts can scarce be kept a few years, with all the aid of artificial substitutes. Even the vines of France grow sterile, and the myrtles of Greece and Italy wither before our frosts. But while such natural laws rapidly eradicate all but a few transplanted exotics, we too have our fields of wheat and corn, and our verdant meadows, such as would wither under tropical skies. Some of these have been artificially introduced, and in truth, if we explore our orchards and gardens, and investigate the history of their contents, we shall find scarce an aboriginal native among them all. Into these we shall inquire more at large as TIIE LENGTHENING DAY. S5 we proceed; but meanwhile it is well that we should guard our subject against overstrained and false deduc- tions. Of the many exotic plants, fruits, and flowers which have from time to time been introduced into our gardens and orchards, only a small portion have been found to possess capabilities suited to the varying condi- tions of our climate. The remainder have died out and disappeared, and thus, while we recognise the bene- ficent design which cares for the perpetuity of animal and vegetable life in our variable climate, we must not overlook the fact that the balance of means, to ends which seems so nearly perfect, is the result of an adjust- ment by which imperfections have been not so much cor- rected as eradicated. Each climate and locality retains what was intended or is fitted to be appropriated by it, and the remainder perishes like an untimely birth. There are two diverse, yet singularly consistent pheno- mena in the disposition of vegetable life throughout our planet, which mutually illustrate each other. On the one hand we perceive the vivifying effects of the invigorating warmth of the advancing seasons in the development of a constant succession of plants and trees, and on the other hand we see their geographical distribution, coexistent with the successive gradations of climate, and variations of local influences between the Polar regions and the equa- tor. The two classes of phenomena may be said to run nearly parallel and mutually to illustrate each other. On ascending a mountain in the torrkl zone, for example, it is found that the higher we rise, the more vegetation loses its characteristic features, and assumes those of other zones, until towards the summits of the loftier mountains the stunted saxifragas and mosses, which form the sole vegetation of the Polar regions, make their appearance and there also skirt the line of perpetual snow. To the interesting subject of the geographical distribution of plants, however, we shall have occasion to return, mean- 8G SPRING. while we seek rather to observe those annual changes which mark the return of spring by the revival of vege- table life and floral beauty. These attractive signs of renewed life, and of the genial return of warmth and sunshine, have been subjects of pleasant welcoming at all periods, and in every country inhabited by man. The Greek and Roman poets abound in such allusions. The Egyptian hieroglyphics and paintings, as well as the sym- bolism of their strange mythology, point, in many ways, to the same welcoming of vegetable life, and its pleasing concomitants, while among the many strange relics disco- vered at Coptos, Thebes, and others of the most re- markable Egyptian sites, a number of Chinese vases have been found, pertaining, as is presumed, to a remote period in the history of that singular people, on one of which this brief but beautiful legend has been deciphered, in the old Chinese characters : "The flower opens, and behold ! another year." From the peculiar geographical position of our own native island, the changes of climate are much more gentle and gradual than in countries lying many degrees nearer the equator. In looking at a physical chart of the globe the isothermal lines passing through the midland counties of England, are seen to descend obliquely through the continent of Europe, impinging on the Black Sea, and passing through the southern portion of the sea of Asaph, eorne ten degrees farther south, while to the westward it is found to embrace New York, in nearly 40 north lati- tude, or fully fifteen degrees nearer the equator than the same line of temperature in England. These isothermal lines, or zones of equal annual mean temperature, how- ever, only mark one of the sources of peculiarity of climate. Along with the isothermal map, that of the rain system must be studied as of next importance, and from it we see that, in addition to the peculiar mildness TUB LENGTHENING DAY. 37 which pertains to the British islands, chiefly from their insular position, they also owe to nearly the same causes their exposure to an amount, and tolerably equal distri- bution of rain throughout the year scarcely known else- where. To this we owe our fertile meadows, and the rich green herbage which so strikes the eye of a stranger on our closely cropped lawns, or rugged, yet verdant Highland hills ; and from this also, with all its mixture of good and evil, Ireland derives the characteristic beauitful from whence it has received the title of the Emerald Isle. In the British islands, the vicinity of so large an area of sea, always in winter at a higher, and in summer at a tower temperature, preserves us from the sudden vicissi- tudes which mark, in many countries, the transition from winter to spring. In Polar regions, where, during nine months in the year, the soil is frozen in one solid mass, hard as the rocks that it rests upon, the brief bright sum- mer requires to proceed with a vigour altogether unknown to us, in order to accomplish the requisite processes of ma- turity and reproduction, before nature is once more locked in the iron embrace of its dreary winter-time. Something analogous to this, though greatly differing in degree, is ex- perienced in the northerntemperate regions both of Europe and America. In Canada, where the sledge is almost universally substituted for the wheeled carriage so soon as the winter sets in, a very few weeks elapse, after the melting of the snow has warned the traveller to resume the more common vehicle, when the intense warmth of summer has set in, and the bud, blossom, and fruit, are seen following each other in rapid succession. This sud- den intensity of heat occurs, indeed, even within the arctic circle. There the snow begins to fall as early as August, warning the dreary settlers in such inhospitable regions that the season of natural life and activity is at an end. The frost settles down, and one icy chain binds ah 1 nature in its fetters as in a sleep of death from which it can never 38 SPKINO. again awake. Captain Parry remarks, in describing the winter passed by him at Melville Island, " The sound of voices which, during the cold weather, could be heard at a much greater distance than usual, served now and then to break the silence which reigned around us ; a silence far different from that peaceable composure which charac- terizes the landscape of a cultivated country : it was the death-like stillness of the most dreary desolation, and the total absence of animated existence." The sleep, however, is not that of death. At length the cheering sun reappears above the horizon, seen, in- deed, by the aid of refraction, some days before his actual rise, in a direct line of vision in such latitudes. In the month of May, the famished inmates of the rude snow huts and pits venture forth in quest of fish on the margin of the sea. Daily the sun acquires greater elevation and increasing power. The snow melts away, and masses of the rapidly dissolving ice, detached from the cliffs, and under- mined beneath, precipitate themselves on the shores with the crash of thunder. The ocean is now unbound, and its icy dome broken up with tremendous rupture. The enor- mous fields of ice, thus set afloat, are, by the violence of wind and currents, again dissevered and dispersed. Some- times, impelled in opposite directions, they approach, and strike with a mutual shock, like the crash of worlds, sufficient, if opposed, to reduce to atoms in a moment the proudest monuments of human power. It is impos- sible to picture a situation more awful than that of the crew of a whaler, who see their frail bark thus fatally in- closed, expecting immediate and inevitable destruction. Before the end of June, the shoals of ice in the Arctic Seas are commonly divided, scattered, and dissipated. But the atmosphere is then almost continually damp, and loaded with vapour. At this season of the year, a dense fog generally covers the surface of the sea, of a milder temperature indeed than the frost-smoke, yet produced THE LENGTHENING DAY. 39 by the inversion of the same cause ; the lower stratum of air, as it successively touches the colder body of water, becoming chilled, and thence disposed to deposite its moisture. In the course of the month of July, the super- ficial water is at last brought to an equilibrium of tem- perature with the air, and the sun now shines out with a bright and dazzling radiance. For a certain time before the close of the summer, such excessive heat is accumu- lated in the bays and sheltered spots, that tar and pitch are sometimes melted, and run down the ships' sides. Notwithstanding the shortness of the summer in the high latitudes, the air on land becomes often oppressively sultry. This excessive heat, being conjoined with mois- ture, engenders clouds of mosquitoes, from the stings of which the Laplanders are forced to seek refuge in their huts, where they envelope themselves in dense smoke. It may naturally excite our wonder that, in a climate where even the brief heat of summer seems only to bring a change of privations and sufferings, human beings should be found content to reside amid its prolonged frosts and brief but burning summer suns. Providence, however, extends with divine care over all the works of nature, nor would the Laplander exchange his snows for the verdure of the temperate zones or the luxuriance of the tropics. Our English poet Cowper, in his beautiful description of Liberty, thus apostrophizes his country : Thee I account still happy, and the chief Among the nations, seeing thou art free ; My native nook of earth 1 Thy clime is rude, Replete with vapours, and disposes much All hearts to sadness, and none more than mine: Thine unadulterate manners are less soft And plausible than social life requires, And thou hast need of discipline and art To give thee what politer France receives From Nature's bounty that humane address And sweetness, without which no pleasure is In converse ; either starved by cold reserve, Or fiush'd with fierce dispute, a senseless brawl 40 SPRING. Tet being free I love (lice : for the sal