AND

To one accustomed to look at Nature with an observant eye, the indifference to her works manifested by most individuals seems at first view irreconcileable with that innate inquisitiveness which characterizes mankind. While his own ear is thrilled with soft melodies-while his imagination catches the living echoes of that anthem which the morning stars hymned at creation's birth-and while his soul expands as it expatiates amid the bright and varied scenes of this magnificent world-his brother's insensibility is to him a mystery. Every fibre in his own bosom is thrilling with delight, as he looks abroad over the fair earth; joyous and stirring perceptions come thronging upon his mind; new and beautiful analogies are developing themselves to his fancy; but why is his brother unmoved? Is the power of sensation palsied ?-or are the heart-springs of gladness sealed up within him? No; but the spell of ignorance is upon him: he has never been initiated in the wonders of creation.

The effects of this spell stand out in bolder relief among the great mass of the indigent and uneducated. The wants attendant on their humble condition must necessarily engross their primary attention, and consequently little leisure is left them for the acquisition of such knowledge as does not immediately tend to the removal of those wants. If Nature is bountiful, they are satisfied with her gifts, without pausing to investigate the wonderful economy by which they are furnished. They are ignorant, indeed, of any such economy. The forms that spring up around them, present nothing particularly curious or interesting to their view. They regard them as mere simple objects, not being aware that the most delicate mechanism, and the most complex combination of elements obtain throughout their minutest parts. The novelty of strange and anomalous structures which occasionally interrupt the falsely deemed monotony of natural objects, or the plumage and note of an unknown bird, may for a moment arrest their attention, and excite their admiration; but far less powerfully in the main, than the feats of the harlequin, or the tricks of the magician. Here childish curiosity finds its richest banquet. It discovers a world of wonders in the merest trifles of human ingenuity.

With this taste, and under this obscuration of intellect, the rustic goes forth amidst the scenes of nature, in a measure unconscious of the living beauty that emanates from every object around him. The decorations of earth and sky are to him comparatively charmless, while he plods on, treading down the flowers, traversing the forests, drowning with some uncouth strain the music of woods and fields, and sending his glance

abroad over the visible glories of creation with listless apathy, But should philosophy remove the mist that is upon his vision and enlighten him on the wonders of Nature's operations, would he then remain as indifferent as before? As well might we suppose the blind man would continue insensible to the splendour of the rainbow, and the loveliness of material forms, were his eyes divested of their cataracts. Explain to the schoolboy the inimitable conformation of the bird or the butterfly that flutters in his hand-the nice adaptation of the members of that tiny frame to symmetry, elegance of motion, and sustentation of life, and he will loosen his careless hold, and gaze on his little prisoner with an admiration he never before experienced. At the same time there will be a kind of awe mingled with his delight, when he discovers that he has been rudely handling the delicate creation of a beneficent architect-a creation abounding with beauty and ingenuity-the visible demonstration of an omniscient intelligence. Teach the untutored peasant, also, the phenomena of the vegetable kingdom-unfold to his comprehension its absorbents and exhalents, its resources for the continuation of the species, and the chemical processes which give to the autumnal forests their gorgeous colorings, and you open a new world to his astonished and delighted mind.

Occasionally one of this class breaks from the thraldrom of indigence, and dashing away the shackles and the scales that bound and blinded him, starts forth like the eagle to gaze with exulting eye on the brightest irradiations of created things. Poverty cannot re-fetter him, nor necessity subdue. The thirst after the hidden fountains of knowledge is in his soul-the fascination of an intelligent curiosity incites him forward, and who shall stay him in his career ?-who hold down the curtain of mystery between his searching vision, and the far-stretching and glorious prospects to which he aspires? He feels that the links in the chain of existences which connect him with the brute are multiplied as the dominions of mind are extended, and the reach of thought approximates the central and allperfect intellect of the universe. As revelation after revelation is unfolded to his mind, the high aspirations for a still nobler and more unclouded sphere of being are changed to an exalted assurance, which becomes, as it were, the life of his existence -a well-spring of hope and solace, forever gushing up fresh and full in his quiet bosom. If indigence require him to toil for sustenance, he goes cheerfully to his task, for his labours are among the objects of his admiration. On the mountains or in the valleys he is neither lonely nor alone. The melody of birds and branches is in his ear, while his eye is filled with the fair presentations of ever-varying land scapes. As he plies the axe or the sickle, fancy is busied with her enchantments, and imagination, as she passes her fairy creations before his mind, divests labour of half its weariness. To him all visible forms present the aspect of life and thought, and in their communion,

he

'Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.'

F

In the glens of the forests he holds companionship with Nature, and in the hush of their awful solitudes he hears her deep voice, and bears himself reverently as within the sphere of some august presence. Every season and every clime have charms for him. The alternations of light and darkness-summer and winter -tempest and calm-all are teeming with interest. He becomes, as it were, the adopted of Nature, and is admitted to her most intimate familiarity. His mind seizes upon her truths as by the power of intuition, and penetrates the mysteries of her operations with the perspicacity of a higher intelligence. His countenance exhibits no trace of that indifference to her charms which characterizes the vacant mien of the multitude; but its every lineament is instinct with an animated and joyous expression. Such were Shakspeare and Burns,-men of humble birth, who, comparatively unacquainted with classic lore, and the accumulated treasures of philosophy, scanned nature with an accuracy of perception, depth of comprehension, and ardency of devotion, unsurpassed by that of the most favoured votaries of science. She seems to have presented herself before them in her unrobed loveliness, and they needed not the teachings of the schools to portray to the life the graces and the glories of their divinity. They were guided by a greater than all human masters-the power of an inborn and sleepless susceptibility. Unfortunately for the world, such paragons are

rare.

The generality of mankind, including many of the affluent and the learned, pass on through life, encircled by beautiful creations, and yet ignorant of their beauties and unconscious of those purifying and ennobling pleasures which spring from a knowledge of the wonders which nature has lavished around them.

Now, Mr. Miller, the author of the work under notice, is one of the best informed and enthusiastic observers of nature that we have lately met with. We presume that in pursuing his laborious trade of basket-making he has often, and at all seasons of the year, had occasion to traverse the provinces far and near. Accordingly he has become acquainted with not only everything that is beautiful in rural scenery, but everything that is engaging in rural life. He not only describes the most characteristic appearances for every month in the year, which fall within the limits of botany and natural history, without, however, their technicalities, but whatever is poetical in life. Rural sports, customs, and superstitions, are thus made subservient to the main design of the work. Many an English village has been ransacked for this purpose: and while whatever that is most interesting to the imagination is brought before the reader, which such subjects can offer, a great deal of useful knowledge is communicated. The book is therefore made the vehicle of much sound morality and religious feeling, which the benevolent character of the author renders doubly attrac

tive.

Although much of the volume consists of extracts, both in verse and prose, from the best writers who have preceded him in his peculiar line, yet these are so skilfully disposed, and set in such a becoming framework of original matter, that it may be said, all that is really good, whether belonging to the author's stores, or to others, is here to be found; showing a deep and familiar acquaintance with the finest pastoral poets and choicest spirits who have luxuriated among rural scenes. After an introductory poem, which chaunts the Beauties of the Country, and a chapter descriptive of the pleasures and benefits of a life there spent, each month of the year, beginning with January, has an appropriate chapter.

In noticing a work like the present, little else is required than to cite a few passages, to show how the author has observed nature and rural life, and to what good purpose he has turned the things described, as matter for touching reflections. In January, take Snow for a theme

"The snow is also very beautiful when it has first fallen. Many of our poets have had recourse to the snow-flake for images of innocence and purity; nor do I know a fitter emblem than a falling flake, ere it receives the stain of earth. There

'All on a sudden now the cherish'd fields
Put on their winter robe of purest white.
'Tis brightness all, save where the new snow melts
Along the mazy current; low the woods
Bow their hoar heads; and here the languid Sun
Faint from the west emits his evening ray,
Earth's universal face, deep hid and chill,

Is one wild dazzling waste, that buries wide
The works of man.'

"How beautiful appears the sky at this season in frosty weather! the full round moon lighting the whitened earth, glancing upon tree and turret, mountain and river, in which the glittering stars are mirrored. We gaze upon them and think of the bygone days when our forefathers ploughed the wide waste of waters without compass or chart, guided by the stars alone. The shepherd-boy gazes upward as he returns from foddering his cattle, and thinks of the daisies of summer scattered, like them, upon the green earth. Our attention is arrested by their beauty; we see their dazzling silver twinkling in the deep blue of midnight, and wonder what they are. Oh! they may be worlds peopled like ours, with valleys flower-bordered, and green woods waving under sunny skies. Or are they the abodes of blessed spirits-beings who have passed through this vale of tears, and are now placed in those starry dwellings, far from care and sorrow?

'Tis midnight! on the moutain's brown
The cold round moon shines deeply down;
Blue roll the waters, blue the sky
Spreads like an ocean hung on high,
Bespangled with those isles of light,
So wildly, spiritually bright.
Who ever gazed upon them shining,
And turn'd to earth without repining;
Nor wish'd for wings to flee away,
And mix with their eternal ray !'

So sang Byron; and we think of those hours when care sat heavily upon the heart-when we wandered abroad in such a scene, amid the stillness of the hills, by the dreaming forest. and called death soft names in many a mused rhyme,' and wished to 'cease upon the midnight with no pain,' and gazed on the blue sky, the burning stars, the serenity of earth and air, all silent as the grave. Then we fain would have peered through the azure vault, or listened to those voices which we once loved, singing now beyond the moon, far away in the echoing domes of heaven. 'Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons? Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth, when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy ?'

I know not what effect snow has upon the air in retarding the progress of sound, but I have often observed that everything which at other times is heard distinct, is now muffled. The ringing of a bell, shouting, the firing of a gun, the barking of a dog, all appear far more distant. And in those sounds which we are accustomed to hear daily, the change is at first surprising. The whole highway is covered with snow several inches thick aud the village streets appear silent; you see the usual stir, but they move more like things in dreams. The huge waggon, which at other times shakes the earth with its load, now moves along a thing of silence; even the horses' feet are muffled. You are obliged to look sharply behind and around you, or some hasty rider will be upon you as suddenly as if he had sprung from the earth. Even the bullock driven by the