pectfully of thee,-to look upon thee in merely a useful light, as a producer of grain and feeder of cattle, and to deem poets and all who "babble o' green fields" on a par with Falstaff, in his dotage: -but let the man who has once been familiar with thy face-who has once sincerely loved thee, find himself on a green sunny knoll some fine summer's morning, gazing upon thee in all thy purity and beauty, and he will feel as if the imaginary elixir of life were poured into his veins-as if the freshness of seventeen had come back upon his hearthis town existence will seem as a confused and feverish dream, and early thoughts and boyish visions will crowd sadly but pleasantly upon his memory. True, his lot is cast amid lanes and streets, and therefore he trudges back to smoke and dust, to bustle and business once again; but not without having his feelings, as well as his frame, fresh-aired; not without having some earth-stains cleansed from his mind, and at least a few of the dirty incrustations which daily habits of contentious jangling have gathered on his heart, loosened or removed.

I always veeps when I sees a green leaf," says Peter Pastoral in the play, and the audience immediately titter at poor Peter's expression as a piece of cockney affectation. Perhaps 'twas not so-perhaps he spoke truth, and a metaphysician might be able to prove it. True, there is no good reason why a man should perambulate the fields with a pockethandkerchief at his face; yet a walk in the country,

where you are surrounded by all sorts of good and kindly influences, has a softening effect upon the stiff and rigid feelings, and the "foolish dew" is nearer the eyelid at a moving incident-the coin. nearer the orifice of the pocket at a charitable appeal, then when treading the stony pavement of the town. It is hard to pass a beggar in the country— it is easy in the streets. Man, like an adjective, is frequently governed by proximate substantives or substances. Earth and ocean, in their beautiful and sublime forms, have some effect upon even the least sensitive lumps of clay. Would the most ineffable puppy practise the airs and graces he brings into play on the public promenade, beneath the shadow of the tall hoar trees, gnarled and massive, and moss-grown at the roots, whose "high tops" have, for centuries "been fretted by the gusts of heaven?" No; the spirit of the woods would silently rebuke the pretty, perfumed gentleman, and he would, for once, feel the incongruity of affectation. Even Beau Brummell, at his best, could scarcely have lectured upon starch by the falls of Niagara. Or place a man on some "tall cliff," with the ocean, in its simple grandeur, at his foot, and the fresh breeze playing on his brow, would he not, unless he were the veriest earth-worm, experience an expansion of soul? Would he not feel temporarily ennobled? Could he abase himself by a mean action-deceive a friend, drive a bargain, lie, equivocate, standing face to face with his Maker's most magnificent creation? True, the

varieties of the human species are infinite, and there may be fellows who can walk with a short, sharp, dapper, self-satisfied strut, along the sea-shore, in the calm of a summer's evening, when the sun is going down behind the waters; but it is a thing that requires to be seen to be believed. Oh, it is good to be with Nature! She rebukes artificialities; she strips us of our sophistications; she is the mildest of democrats; the only thoroughly sincere and tolerant inculcator of the great doctrine of equality; making us humbler yet higher, and properly teaching how to estimate the city-born "meanness that soars, and pride that licks the dust."

'There is a good deal of cant and delusion on this same subject too. Some people pretend to be in love with nature, or deceive themselves into a belief that they are so, because they are a good deal in her company, though, at the time, they are merely using her as a handle for scientific purposes. These are your "learned Thebans," who go mineralizing and botanizing over the country, in search of materials for catalogues, or book-making, or papers for journals of learned societies. They look upon the beauties of nature, but do not see them. Like Lady Macbeth, their "eyes are open, but the sense is shut," except for scientific purposes. Point out a fine bold precipice, or overhanging cliff that imparts a peculiar charm to the landscape, to one of those, and he will explain forthwith the various strata of which the one is composed, and whether the other is granite or

freestone. Walk with another through the fields, and his head is so full of the different species of grasses and Latin and Linnæus, and the proper classification of plants, the discoveries of some and the errors of others, that he notes not the waving of the rich meadow, the clear brook winding silently through it, or the graceful undulations of hill and dale around; take him into a wood, and he goes groping about the tree-roots, inspecting the dank mosses, and the numerous and interesting family of fungi. Hundreds of people again "do so love nature!" exactly as they "do so love music!" because it is just as easy to say they love it, as that they love it not, and sounds a great deal better; it savors of fine taste, and sweet, delicate feelings, and therefore they "do so love it,” while another numerous class obtrude themselves into her presence for the ostensible object of gazing on her divine beauties, but in reality for the gross, earthly purpose of sharpening their appetites-"doing themselves good," as they call it, so that they may be enabled, without injury to themselves, to devour an additional portion of her productions. Others go to suck poetry out of her, and imbibe as many rural images as will decently suffice for an effusion;others, because they are tired of the town;-others, because they have nothing better to do.

There is one class of beings it is difficult to meet with anywhere without sorrow of heart, but more especially in the country, in the "spring-time of the year." It is the delicate in health-those on VOL. II. 17

whose brow death has already set his mark; who look as if they were not long for this world. It was on one of those delicious May mornings, when spring is gently falling into the embrace of summer, which unite the freshness of the one season with the gaiety and fervor of the other-one of those mornings which fill you with joyous hopes and pleasurable anticipations, and make you feel complacently towards yourself, and peaceably and charitably towards all men. A slight shower had fallen, but the blue heavens were without a cloud. I entered one of those fine old lanes one so frequently meets with in pictures, scarcely marked with the track of man or brute, and which seem made for little other purpose than to beautify the country. The grass was still glittering with the rain-drops, and the unclipped hawthorns, in full bloom, which formed the hedge on either side, shook pearls and blossoms from their fragrant bosom, as the fresh breeze ever and anon gently agitated their branches. At one of its picturesque turnings there was an individual resting against a gate, and gazing at the springing corn. I recognised him at a glance as a youth belonging to the district, a lad of much promise, who had left a couple of years previously for the university, where an ardent thirst for knowledge, united to a kind and social disposition, which insensibly led him into the dissipations incident to a college life, had proved too much for a naturally fragile constitution, and after a short, ineffectual struggle with the insidious destroyer, consumption, he had returned home to die. There