and breathing vegetation around; every thing wears the freshness of youth, the liveliness of a new-born verdure. Even the moss upon the venerable trunk is scarcely noticed amidst the foliage of the over-arching boughs, and the vigorous encircling shoots. The sward beneath the feet, manured with the fallen leaves of a past season, is again clothed with a rank herbage, from which the moisture never exhales. Along the steep and grassy bank, or under the dewy hazel shade, blooms in virgin beauty that lovely daughter of Nature, that earliest woodland flower, the primrose.* The grass is besprinkled with blossoms, which recall the feelings and sports of youthful days, when, to wander through the woods, and pluck those blossoms, formed unutterable enjoyment. The thickets of hazel and sloe-bushes, of late so naked as to expose to view the nests of a former year, which they once effectually concealed, are now darkened with buds and leaves, and are alive once more with the brisk labors of birds, and echoing with their song. If we turn to the neighboring holly, we descry on one of its boughs the blackbird's comfortable nest, where she, with brooding instinct, already hatches her eggs; her mate meanwhile, from some adjacent bough, pouring forth, at intervals, his shrill and beautiful song. And yonder, in the young spruce-fir, whose mossy and evergreen branches afford a warm shelter, is the early nest of the thrush, firmly compacted of moss and withered straws, and plastered inside to keep out the cold night winds. The redbreast hovers about his lowly dwelling, in the decayed dike, or natural bank; and the wren, one of the tiniest, but not least skilful of architects, is seen flying with a bit of moss for the roof of her snug dwelling. And hark! the most soothing and truly silvan * [Instead of primrose, read violet, or wood-anemone, or hepatica, or Houstonia, or the name of any of our delicate Spring flowers which may be dearest to the memory of the New England reader. We have not the English primrose ;-would that we had! Our evening primrose is a different plant.-Aм. ED.] [The English robin is not one of our birds. Our robin, so called, is a red-breasted thrush,—a graceful creature, larger than the English robin, and almost as domestic, hopping early and late in the fields and about our farmhouses.-AM. ED.] II. 32 VIII. of all sounds, the cooing of the wood-pigeon, issues from "the aerial elm," or wide-spreading beech. "Over her own sweet voice the stock-dove broods." The pheasant springs up at our feet,* and flies whirring away to the covert of the lonely brake, where he is seldom disturbed even by the approach of the forester. He is a bird of most splendid plume; but, all unlike his gaudy rival the peacock, he avoids the gaze of man, and frequents the unapproached recesses of the woods. Beautifully has the poet said of him, "He, Christian-like, retreats with modest mien, "" COWPER. The woodland brook, lately a boisterous torrent, has shrunk into its wellworn shelvy channel, and now shoots with a softened sound down the steep ravine, and, with a clearer wave and softer murmur, winds along the meadow glade, watering the twisted and exposed roots of the alders and willows on its brink, and reflecting, with every glimpse of sunshine, the wild beauties of the silvan landscape. Its winter floodmarks, consisting of boughs, leaves, and withered grass, all matted together, are still visible at some distance on each bank, and on the overhanging branches of the neighboring shrubs and trees. Tracing upwards its wild and devious course, we come to many little rapids and cascades, and behold with admiration the miniature falls that fill the thickets with their din, and fling a gentle spray upon the water-loving shrubs that bend over them. Fancy delights to find in the tiny and unknown stream, all the features of the mighty river. There are to be seen little shoals, and sand-banks, and shallows, deep pools and foaming cataracts,-waters that at one time flow dallying along in many a winding and woody sweep, at another rush impetuously forward in * [Neither is the English pheasant one of our birds. The bird called pheasant at the South, and partridge by us at the North, is neither one nor the other, but a grouse the ruffed grouse, or Tetrao umbellus of naturalists. Though a fine bird, he cannot boast the splendid plumage of the English pheasant. The scientific name of the latter is Phasianus torquatus.-AM. ED.] a rapid and arrowy stream. Extend the course of this insignificant brook, we inwardly exclaim, and feed it as it wanders, and it will become a vast inland flood, spanned by lofty bridges, and traversed by ships from every shore; the Nile and the Amazon, in the first part of their course, have a channel no larger than the bed of this nameless stream. As we approach, in our devious wandering, the interior recesses of the forest, where the path becomes rougher and wilder, the trees more lofty, and the brushwood beneath more tangled and untrimmed,-where the silence is unbroken by any sound of rustic labor, or noises of flocks and herds that pasture in the open fields, and where the umbrageous vistas are darker and cooler than in the outer woodlands, a solemn reverential feeling steals upon the mind; we give way to silvan dreams and tender reveries, gently oppressed by the very vividness of our perceptions; and we hold communion, as it were, with the stately vegetable forms around us, sympathizing in their apparent joy in the process of reanimation, hearing, in the murmur of the wind among their leaves, an expression of delight, and breathing, in the balmy gale, the offered incense of their gratitude. We feel as if placed in a natural sanctuary, in deep seclusion from the tumult of the world. The gloom is favorable to meditation. Let us not devote it to the Pan or Silvanus of antiquity, or to some imaginary Genius of the place, but to the great Creator of all things, whose praise ascends alike from the mountain's lofty peak, from the quiet bosom of the valley, and from the awful depths of solitary forests. On emerging from the dark and "leafy labyrinth,' where we have been wandering pleasingly bewildered, our ears are greeted with a multitude of cheerful rural sounds, the lowing of cattle, the bleating of sheep, and all the noises attendant on the field labors of the farmer; and our eyes wander with sudden delight over a wide expanse of clear and yet variegated country, green lea-fields, ploughed lands, watery meadows, banks tufted with trees and coppices, and hill-sides lying open to the sun. We have left a wilderness behind us, and enter upon the bright domain of cultivation. On returning homewards, let us not forget Him to whom we owe the ever-varying and everpleasing aspects of Nature; but consecrate to His praise the feelings and imaginings inspired by our walk. Let us not have entered in vain the solemn temple of the woods. J. D. THIRTEENTH WEEK-THURSDAY, RETROSPECTIVE VIEW OF THE ARGUMENT.-THE POWER AND INTELLIGENCE OF THE CREATOR. In looking back on the subject which has been under our consideration, in the course of this volume, it is impossible not to be struck with the force of the cumulative argument, which a view of the reproductive operations of Spring affords, for the being and perfections of God. Every distinct instance of that contrivance, by which, amidst the universal law of decay, the species is preserved, is a separate proof of Designing Intelligence; and, when all these evidences are combined, and made to bear on each other, they form a chain of demonstration, which is not only complete and irresistible, but might even appear cumbrous by its superfluity, did we not discover, in every new example, some new grace and beauty, to interest the mind, and fill it with devout admiration. In our temperate climate, the gradual progress of returning warmth, with its various accompaniments of increasing light, of subsiding storms, and of genial showers, is attended, as we have seen, with a corresponding developement of plants, obviously suited, with studied intention, to the nature of that progress, and the respective grades of temperature in the various latitudes and local peculiarities. These plants, again, are admirably fitted to the condition of living creatures, in all their varieties, from the microscopic insect, up to man. The tender stalk shoots, the green blade expands, the flower opens in its beauty, and exhales its perfume, the grain and the fruit grow and ripen, not idly to waste their vegetative powers, but to afford subsistence and enjoyment to those higher species of organized beings, with which they are associated. And, as Nature becomes more and more liberal of her vegetable stores, in the same proportion do the inhabitants of the animal world increase, to partake of the bountiful feast she spreads. It is well worthy of remark, as an instance of those wonderful adaptations, which I have so often had occasion to notice, that the reproductive season of the vegetable creation is also that of the animal creation. When the various tribes, which have passed the winter in their embryo form, or have survived it in a state of insensibility, begin to move on the surface of the earth, they find a sweet and nutritious food newly created, as it were, for their use, varying in its kind, according to the wants of the animals destined to feed upon it. And the same thing may be said with regard to the young of those living creatures which reproduce their species at this season. The means of subsistence and of enjoyment are amply furnished both for themselves and their offspring, whether, during winter, they have been dormant in holes and caves, or have found scanty support in the half-decayed herbage, or have preyed on other animals, or have plied their way from distant lands on unwearied wings. The instincts, which have relation to the reproduction of the lower animals, at this season, are another provision which we have noticed as a proof of beneficent design. There is no particular relating to these instincts which is not calculated to call forth the admiration and astonishment of the reflecting mind; but, above all, the longprotracted cares and incessant toils of the feathered tribes, cannot be contemplated without a peculiar interest. That a world doomed to mortality should continue to be peopled with living beings, indicates prospective contrivance of vast magnitude and extent. The various rela tions and adjustments, which such a scheme implies, are such, that the bare contemplation of them overwhelms the human mind. Yet how admirably has the provision been made! With what consummate skill and forethought |