July.

JULY is a dumb, dreaming, hot, lazy, luxurious, delightful month, for those who can do as they please, and who are pleased with what they do. The birds are silent; we have no more cuckoo, no more nightingale; nature is basking in repose; the cattle stand in the water; shade is loved, and rest after dinner. We understand, in July, what the Spaniard means by his siesta. A book and a sofa in the afternoon, near a tree-shaded window, with a prospect of another room, seen through folding doors, in which the hot sun comes peeping between Venetian blinds, is pleasant to one's supineness. The sensible thing is, to lie on your back, gently pillowed 'twixt head and shoulders, the head resting on the end of the sofa, and so read-listening at intervals to the sound of the foliage, or to the passing visit of the bee. The thing, more sensible, is to have a companion who loves your book and yourself, and who reads with you, provided you can let her read. I must not come, however, to my afternoon before my morning; though July, being lazy, makes us think of it first. July and August are afternoon and evening months; May and June are morning months; September and October are day months; the rest are night months, for firesides, unless we except April, and that is as you can get it. You may experience all the seasons in it, and must catch the sunshine as you can, betwixt the showers.

July, however, though a lazy month, is not lazy from weakness. If nature reposes, it is the repose of affluent power and sovereign beauty. The gardens are in purple, and golden, and white splendour (with the lily); the trees in thickest exuberance; the sky at its bluest; the clouds full, snowy, and mountainous. The genial armies of the rain are collecting, against the time when the hot sun shall be too potent. The grandest, and at the same time the liveliest of the wild flowers, the convolvulus, is lording it in the hedges. In the garden, the nasturtium seems a flower born of fire. There is an exquisite flavour of something burning in its taste. The daughter of Linnæus found out, that sparks are emitted from the nasturtium in warm evenings. It was a piece of observation fit for the daughter of the great botanist, and has asso

VOL. III.-NO. I.

ciated her memory with one of the most agreeable secrets of nature. Female discoveries ought to be in the region of the beautiful and the sprightly. No disparagement to Miss Martineau, who unites poetical and philosophical feeling to a degree hitherto displayed by none of her sex; and whose sphere of the useful, being founded on sympathy, contains in it all the elements of enjoyment. I mention this, because it has been strangely supposed of me, Charles Dalton, husband of Harriet D. (for I need not remind the reader that he is not to attend to that " nom de guerre" of mine at the head of these articles) that I have thrown divers stones, yclept paragraphs, at the head of my wife's namesake; which I should as soon think of doing as being angry with the summer sky.

"Do you like Harriet?" said a learned lord to me the other day, no less remarkable for the vivacity of his good-nature, than his wit. He was speaking of Miss M., whom I have not the pleasure of knowing. The question startled me; for besides the identity of the christian name, it is manifestly impossible not to like "Harriet." Harriet is all womankind. A female name, thus put in question, ad hominem, stands for the whole sex. I knew not which I liked better at the moment, the lady or the interrogator.

Harriet, by the way, is a very sprightly name. It is the female of Harry, and is identified in my imagination with I know not what of the power of being lively and saucy, without committing the sweetness of womanhood. I have told my bride so a hundred times, and it is astonishing what a talent she has at corroboration. I believe if you were to put the same case to her twenty times an hour, she would meet you with twenty new illustrations of it. It is perfectly amazing to me, how these extremely gentle and quiet women, who present the same mild, unruffled, unaffected manners from morning to night, and who seem (as the phrase is) as if " butter would not melt in their mouths," can open upon you a world of feeling and fancy inexhaustible, and which would seem to have been secreted in a marvellous manner, from every body but yourself. But I shall get into a discussion. I suspected, however, from the first time I saw her, that Harriet had a great deal of vivacity lurking under

F

that soft eye of hers. It is an eye that looks into you, not at you; or rather, which has an inward look in itself, so that if it looks at you at all, you take the depth from which it speculates, for a proportionate insight into the depth of your own feelings. And this insight she has when she chooses. Her very glance conveys the strongest impression of the idea passing in her mind, accompanied by an equally strong recognition of what is passing in yours. It was thus that I knew she returned my love, before a word of it was said on either side. She had been remarking the day before to her aunt, in answer to a sort of apology which the latter had made for giving a more peremptory opinion than usual upon some doubtful matter in which her niece was concerned, that she knew nothing more desirable than to be delivered from a painful state of hesitation by a kind friend, and that she always desired it "in proportion as she loved." "I wish she would desire it of me," thought I; "this would be true female love, looking for the help of man." Next day an application for charity was made to her, which she wished to accede to, but was not quite sure of her right. Her aunt and I were both present, but she instinctively looked first at me, with the dear question in her eyes, and then blushed like scarlet, and turned to the old lady. Conobbi allor, (to make a grand quotation from an exquisite sonnet of Petrarch),

"Conobbi allor si come in Paradiso
Vede l'un l'altro.

"I knew her then, as spirits in Paradise
See one another."

We sometimes got up early of a morning in July, going to bed proportionately soon at night, and laughing to think how some of our fashionable acquaintances would suppose they had the laugh on their side, for our reasonable and happy life. Sometimes we took the carriage, and leaving it with the servants, walked into some thick lane of trees, or little wood, seeing what flowers were left us, and listening to the silence, which was swept at intervals by the gentle morning wind. We then returned to breakfast, went to our tasks, met at an early dinner, had the dessert laid in another room, and retiring there, passed a delicious afternoon. Harriet was now in that condition, which the eye of every gallant man respects, and the soul of love encircles with its tenderest protection. I have a theory, no, not a theory, it is a conviction, founded upon all that I ever read, thought, or saw upon the subject, that the character of the human offspring is modified at a period much

earlier than the earliest of its observers are apt to suppose, and that it is delightful to see the future mother passing her time in security, and with a double portion, if possible, of sense and cheerfulness. A suspicion, partly to this effect, has, in fact, always existed, but not often to very sensible purpose. An expectation of good sense from the lady has been raised at the precise time that she most needs it, and ladies, not very sensible in general, have availed themselves of the privilege to be more than usually absurd. Hence, because the frames of children are affected by sudden impressions on the part of the mother (a fact not to be doubted) have risen all sorts of fantastic wants and pretences, with their pleasing accompaniments of hysterics, faintings, rages, remonstrances, and additions to tradesmen's bills; and hence (for the minds of children are affected as well as their bodies, though the apparently obvious deduction is never thought of) the children come into the world squalling and to squall, and the foolish parents who helped to make them what they are, hasten to make them worse by scolding or indulgence, till they wonder what perverse brats they have engendered.

Fortunately for me, and for the little creature that has just been crowing at me with a voice of sugar, and a face full of dimples, Harriet understood the philosophy of this matter at a glance; and estimating the perils of her condition at their proper amount, and no more, and feeling herself joyfully secure from them as far as her own temper and mine were concerned, her goodness and taste were never more evinced than at this period. Never did I know her more delightful. She volunteered no dangers, nor imagined any, where there was no ground for them. She renounced horseback, and was cautious enough not to walk the street without a veil, or with eyes unprepared, lest she should encounter any of those frightfully pitiable objects, which luckily are not so common in England as in some other parts of Europe. For the rest, she was as gay as a lark, and tender as gratitude; had no fancies, because she had no wilfulness or folly; and walked (to the last) in the garden, as if she had been an Amazon. Yes: one fancy she had, but she was doubtful whether she should indulge it, purely because it was a fancy. She had read accounts of the supposed origin of the beauty of the ancient Greeks, and of imaginations affected by paintings and sculpture; and she asked me, whether I should think the wish whimsical, or whether she ought to wish me,

to hasten the purchase of a couple of statues I had talked of the celestial Venus and the Apollo of the Vatican. I said I rejoiced in seizing the opportunity to get them, for that I had delayed it for no other reason than because we had been ruralising so much of late that I had almost forgotten the town. They were procured the next day, and installed in the two furthest corners of our principal sitting-room, where they looked beauty and tranquillity at us, from morn till night, and disposed my charmer's mind to repose on her idealism made visible. She said she had no fear of unpleasant thoughts, but was willing to render pleasant ones more than usually distinct to her imagination. "And these beautiful strangers," said I, smiling, "will not displace me in your thoughts?" "Dis

place you!" cried she, rising from the chair in which she was sitting near me, as I reclined on the sofa, and coming towards me with an air of gay revenge; then added, in a lower tone, and with exquisite tenderness, and gently pressing herself against my heart, "How could they?"

But I ought to have an audience made on purpose, and safe from the chance of unworthy listeners, before I could indulge my pride with recording more of these speeches. To others I leave it to imagine the evenings we passed;—how quiet, how kind, how consummate,-how attentive without exaction-how reposing on certainty-how full of past, present, and future-making my July as well as my January a true honeymoon, if ever there was sweetness in truth and love.

We had arrived at Monte Video, and were pleased with the compactness and cheerfulness of that little city; the style of its open champaign country is altogether different from that of the magnificent beauty which encircles Rio de Janeiro, but its rural simplicity formed to us perhaps an agreeable change. I speak strictly on the scenery, for war has always been busy with Monte Video, and its desolating traces were too marked and visible. The ruined or burnt farm houses and villages; the fertile and beautiful estates of the principal landholders, overrun with the luxuriance of their neglected vegetation; the scanty population, listless poverty, and unnatural quiet, all bore ample and melancholy testimony to the frequent presence of this scourge of our race.

We could not at any time extend our excursions beyond three or four miles; the Buenos Ayrean lines usually commencing at that distance. At one time the siege was pretty closely pressed; provisions began to get scarce; and it was not over safe to put our heads out of the gates. This state of things, however, did not last long. Usually I rambled into the country with my children, very slightly attended, and with such attendance as I well knew would be of no use in any danger. A gaucho whirling along with his lasso, sometimes accompanied by his wife, almost as expert and hardy as himself; a dragoon posting away

with orders; or merry groups of black and mulatto girls with scarfs and petticoats of all colours, and baskets on their heads, filled with the linen they were obliged to take to the river to wash, were the principal living objects that met our view: what we disliked most to encounter, were herds of half wild cattle. We once or twice got into a scrape by not being back before the closing of the gates: a bugle was always sounded as a warning, and it was sometimes amusing to. see every creature about that was human, old and young, set off at full speed when this note of summons met their ears.

But to return to my story: Monte Video was so crowded on our arrival, that not a decent shelter could we find. Inns and hotels are luxuries unknown; and it was with great difficulty we succeeded in screwing ourselves into a dwelling consisting of a ground floor of five or six little rooms; but we had it to ourselves, and the situation was good, being in a small, quiet, airy street, leading from the government house, and exactly opposite the theatre. These apartments we made, with the furniture we brought with us, as comfortable as we could; and as we had some kind friends, both English and Spanish, we got on pretty well: thoroughly engaged in these necessary avocations, I thought as much of the war our masters the Brazilians had sent us to assist in, as I did of the last invasion of China by the Tartars.