to breathe the very freshness of the living landscape. He is describing the hottest hours of

noon:

Thrice happy he! who on the sunless side
Of a romantic mountain, forest-crown'd,
Beneath the whole collected "gloom" reclines.-
Welcome, ye shades! ye bowery thickets, hail!
Ye lofty pines! ye venerable oaks !

Ye ashes wild, resounding o'er the steep!
Delicious is your shelter to the soul,
As to the hunted hart the sallying spring,
Or stream full-flowing, that his swelling sides
Laves, as he floats along the herbag'd brink.

Summer.

If any thing were wanting to paint in yet stronger terms the intense gratification which, with other adjuncts of a similar kind, umbrage dark and deep as this affords, when Nature pants as it were beneath the dazzling deluge, no where can it be better drawn than from a sketch presented to us by Mr. Gisborne, who, in describing a peasant boy watching unsheltered his master's herd during the fervor of a summer's noon, represents him, overcome by the

sultriness of the hour, as falling asleep and dreaming of what is directly opposed to the throbbing heat which burns within his bosom. It is a delineation full of merit, and illustrated in a manner which touches some of the finest feelings of the heart.

Panting, bare-headed, and with outstretch'd arms
He sleeps; and dreams of winter's frosty gale,
Of sunless thickets, rills with breezy course,
Morn's dewy freshness, and cool rest at eve.
So when in slumber the poor exile seeks
A pause from woe, delusive fancy's hand
Presents each object of his fond desire.
He reads the joyful summons to return;
Beholds the bark prepar'd, the swelling sail;
Hears the impatient seamen murmur; grasps
The pendent rope exulting; climbs the deck;
Skims o'er the wave, and hails his native shore.
Walks in a Forest; Noon.

It is, however, where amid the twilight of the grove or wood, we meet the lake, the cave, the gushing stream, or murmuring fountain, that our triumph over the fervors of the summernoon becomes complete; and we are tempted to

compare our happy lot, not only with the situation of those who are necessitated to labour beneath the blaze of an European sun, but with those who are condemned to endure the tenfold horrors of a torrid clime. It is a comparison of this kind which has rendered the following lines so pre-eminently striking, especially towards the close, where the personification of thirst introduces a thought that speaks to us in the very voice of nature.

But ever against restless heat,
Bear me to the rock-arch'd seat,
O'er whose dim mouth an ivy'd oak
Hangs nodding from the low-brow'd rock;
Haunted by that chaste nymph alone,
Whose waters cleave the smoothed stone;
Which, as they gush upon the ground,
Still scatter misty dews around:
A rustic, wild, grotesque alcove,
Its sides with mantling woodbines wove;
Cool as the cave where Clio dwells,
Whence Helicon's fresh fountain wells;
Or noon-tide grot where Sylvan sleeps
In hoar Lyceum's piny steeps.

Me, Goddess, in such cavern lay,
While all without is scorch'd in day;

Sore sighs the weary swain, beneath
His with'ring hawthorn on the heath;
The drooping hedger wishes eve,

In vain, of labour short reprieve !
Meantime, on Afric's glowing sands,
Smote with keen heat the trav'ler stands :
Low sinks his heart, while round his eye
Measures the scenes that boundless lie,
Ne'er yet by foot of mortal worn,
Where Thirst, wan pilgrim, walks forlorn.
How does he wish some cooling wave
To slake his lips, or limbs to lave!
And thinks, in every whisper low,
He hears a bursting fountain flow.

WARTON.*

But not only does a retreat of this kind afford the most delicious refreshment to the languid and over-heated functions of the body, it communicates also to the intellectual powers a luxury of a still higher description, leading to those gentle thoughts and beautiful imaginings which dissipate for a time the cares and turmoils of a restless world, and woo the breast to peace and

* Ode on the Approach of Summer.

harmony. Who that has once enjoyed the tranquil blessings of an hour like this, is not ready to exclaim with the philosophic enthusiasm of Lucretius,

Si non aurea sunt juvenum simulacra per ædeis
Lampadas igniferas manibus retinentia dextris,
Lumina nocturnis epulis ut suppeditentur;
Nec domus argento fulget, auroque renidet,
Nec citharis reboant laqueata aurataque templa;
Attamen inter se, prostrati in gramine molli,
Propter aquæ rivum, sub ramis arboris altæ,
Non magnis opibus jucundè corpora curant.
Lib. ii. 1. 24 ad 31.

What, though the dome be wanting, whose proud walls

A thousand lamps irradiate, propt sublime

By frolic forms of youths in massy gold,

Flinging their splendours o'er the midnight feast; Though gold and silver blaze not o'er the board, Nor music echo round the gaudy roof?

Yet listless laid the velvet grass along

Near gliding streams, by shadowy trees o'er-arch'd, pomps we need not.

Such

Good.