XXI. VERNAL REFLECTIONS.

Le doux Printemps revient, et ranime à la fois
Les oifeaux, les zephirs, et les fleurs, et ma voix.
Dans les champs, dans les bois, fur les monts d'alen-”

tour,

Que tout rit de bonheur, d'efperance, et d'mour!

Lo! where the rofy-bofom'd Hours,

Fair Venus' train appear,
Disclose the long-expecting flowers,
And wake the purple year!
The attic warbler pours her throat,
Refponfive to the cuckow's note,

The untaught harmony of spring;
While, whifp'ring pleafure as they fly,
Cool zephyrs through the clear blue sky
Their gather'd fragrance fling.

DE LILLE.

GRAY.

THE multiplicity of beautiful objects in the creation, and the variety and conftant viciffitude of the feafons, are lefs to be wondered at by the Conteni plative Philofopher, than the inattention and indifference with which they are too often beheld. ́A rural excurfion is productive of very different reflections in ordinary minds from what wifdom would fuggeft with admiration, and devotion utter with reverence and awe. Man, as if endowed with no higher faculties than the beafts of the field, "wanders often with brute unconfcious gaze", and difcerns not "the mighty Hand, that, ever bufy", upholds, informs, and actuates the whole.

What Tully has obferved on a different occafion, may be applicable likewife to all contemplations on the beauties of Nature and the Seafons, and is a very forcible recommendation of them: Omnia pro

fecto, cum fe à cœleftibus rebus referet ad humanas, excelfiùs magnificentiufque et dicet et fentiet: "The contemplation of celeftial things will make a man both fpeak and think more fublimely and magnificently, when he defcends to human affairs".-They have a tendency to exalt the mind above the low and groveling ideas that enflave the vulgar, the prepoffeffions of ignorance, and the terrors of fuperftition. By a kind of philofophical neceffity, they fuperinduce a habit of ferious and devotional reflection, and, by a happy confequence, a delight in the exercifes of piety, benevolence, and virtue. They are productive, alfo, of the fweeteft and moft permanent fatisfaction; fo well is philofophy, in this respect, entitled to the noble eulogy of Milton:

How charming is divine philofophy!
Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools fuppofe,
But mufical as is Apollo's lute,

And a perpetual feaft of nectar'd fweets,
Where no crude furfeit reigns.

With the poets in every age Spring has been one of the most favourite fubjects. When they would defcribe the beauties of Paradife, and the felicities of the Golden Age, their Spring flourishes in perpetual verdure, and fmiles with everlafting pleasure. Thus Milton adorns his Eden:

Airs, vernal airs,

Breathing the fmell of field and grove, attune
The trembling leaves, while univerfal Pan,
Knit with the Graces and the Hours in dance,
Led on th' eternal Spring.

And Ovid describes his Golden Age,

Ver crat æternum, placidique tepentibus auris
Mulcebant zephyri natos fine femine flores.
The flow'rs unfown, in fields and meadows reign'd,
And western winds immortal Spring maintain’d.

DRYDEN.

One of the most beautiful ornaments of poetry is the creation of imaginary beings, or the perfonification of inanimate objects. Such a favourite as the Spring could not, in courfe, be neglected or forgotten. It has been defcribed as a youth of a moft beautiful air and fhape, but not yet arrived at that exact fymmetry of parts, which maturer years might be fuppofed to give him. There is fuch a bloom, however, in his countenance, with fuch a fweetness, complacency, and pleafure, that he appears created to infpire every bofom with delight. He is dreffed in a flowing mantle of green filk, interwoven with flowers; a chaplet of rofes on his head, and a jonquil in his hand. Primrofes and violets fpring up fpontaneoufly at his feet, and all nature revives at his exhilerating afpect. Flora attends him on one hand, and Vertumnus, in a robe of changeable filk, on the other. Venus, with no other ornament than her own beauties, follows after. She is fucceeded by the Graces with their arms intwined, and with loofened girdles, moving to the found of foft mufic, and ftriking the ground alternately with their feet. The Months that properly belong to this feafon, appear likewife in his train, with fuitable emblematic decorations.

Pleasure is reprefented as taking her flight in Winter to cities and towns, and revifiting the gladdened country in Spring. Mrs. Barbauld has beautifully defcribed this, as well as the gradual progress of the feafon, from its earlieft infant efforts, to the perfection of vernal beauty in the delightful month of May.

When Winter's hand the roug'ning year deforms,
And hollow winds foretel approaching forms,
Then Pleafure, like a bird of paffage, flies
To brighter climes, and more indulgent skies;
Cities and courts allure her fprightly train,
From the bleak mountain and the naked plain;

And gold and gems with artificial blaze,
Supply the fickly fun's declining rays.
But foon, returning on the western gale,
She feeks the bofom of the graffy vale:
There, wrapt in careless eafe, attunes the lyre,
To the wild warblings of the woodland quire :
The daified turf her humble throne fupplies,
And early primrofes around her rife.

Now the glad earth her frozen zone unbinds,
And o'er her bofom breathe the western winds.
Already now the fnowdrop dares appear,
The firft pale bloffom of th' unripen'd year;
As Flora's breath, by fome transforming pow'r,
Had chang'd an icicle into a flow'r :

Its name and hue the fcentlefs plant retains,
And winter lingers in its icy veins.
To thefe fucceed the violet's dusky blue,
And each inferior flow'r of fainter hue
Till riper months the perfect year disclose,
And Flora cries, exulting, See my rofe.

;

What a wonderful revolution, indeed, in the univerfal aspect of Nature does the return of this lovely. feafon exhibit! After having been long bound up with frost, or overfpread with fnow, the earth once more displays all her variety of plants and flowers, is arrayed with the most beautiful and enlivening verdure, variegated with a numberlefs variety of hues, and exhales odours fo exquifitely pure and fragrant, that every fenfe of every creature is awake to inexpreffible delight.

Forth in the pleafing Spring
His beauty walks, His tendernefs and love.
Wide flush the fields; the foftening air is balm;
Echo the mountains round; the foreft fmiles;
And every sense, and every heart is joy.

THOMSON.

None of the other feafons can vie with Spring in loveliness and amenity. It has the fame order

among them that the morning has among the divifions of the day, and youth among the ftages of life. It may be called the favourite feafon of harmony; for the warbling of the feathered tribes has been observed to have now a peculiar wildness and sweetness of melody. Nor is its fweet influence confined to the fongfters of the groves: it pervades the whole animal creation. But I must confine my obfervations to its influence on man, that I may not be led to exceed the limits of this paper. Thomfon, in his inimitable Seafons, has left nothing on this fubject for future poets to defcribe.

In the opening of Spring, and the subsequent re-. novation of Nature, how very fenfibly is the human foul exhilerated by that fenfe of pleasure, which infpires the birds with melody, and the whole creation with joy. In this feafon, when we contemplate the fmiling fcenes around, those secret overflowings of gladnefs are diffufed over the foul, which compofe what Milton expreffively calls "vernal delight", and which I have heard denominated, with no lefs beauty and propriety," the fimile of Nature". What an exquifite fenfe of this does the virtuous, philofopher experience! The creation, particularly in, this lovely feafon, is a perpetual feaft to the mind of a good man. From all that he beholds, he receives inftruction and delight. Providence has adorned the whole creation with fuch a variety of beautiful and ufeful objects, that it is impoffible for a mind, not imbruted by mere fenfual enjoyments, to contemplate the fcenes around without fome of the sweetest internal sensations of which man can be fufceptible. But when to the delightful fatisfaction which rural objects afford, we add an occafional attention to the Rudies of natural philofophy, our relish for the beauties of the creation is quickened, and rendered not only pleafing to the imagination, but to the understanding; and it is an unquestionable