182 THE TABERNACLE OF THE FIGTREE.

of Indian corn, is in great measure superseded by fine old orchards of walnut, apple, and pear; and, on a nearer approach to Chillon, wide valleys in every shade of verdure, variegated with white villages and hoary towers, and sweeping off into picturesque hills clothed to the very summit with turf and tree, and mantling with thick groves cheerily displaying the broad gables of a romantic grange, or the graceful steeple of a rustic spire, win, by the force of contrast, a degree of admiration greater perhaps than their intrinsic beauty have a right to demand.

The semicircle of hills at the head of the lake border so closely on the Sublime, that you feel vexed they are not still bolder and less abundant in the luxuriance of cornfield, vineyard, turf, and wood.

I noticed near Lausanne, in one of those picturesque old villages that embroider the lake, a very large fig tree, the most robust of trunk I ever saw, spreading its boughs like a trellised roof, and so planted before the door of a huge straggling Hostel, as to form a capacious Porch, under whose goodly shadow some dozen villagers might recreate both body and mind, much at their ease, and I thought this beautiful passage from Saint Chrysostom's Homilies on the destruction of the Imperial Statues at Antioch, too germane to the matter, not to tempt one to insert it. speaking of Abraham's Oak.

He is

THE LAKE OF MORAT.

183

"He covered not his Roof with Gold, but, fixing his Tent near the Oak, he was contented with the Shadow of its leaves. That Lodging was rudely prepared, but it was more illustrious, than the Halls of Kings. No King has ever entertained Angels, but he dwelling under that Oak, and having but pitched a Tent, was thought worthy of that honor; enjoying that benefit on account of the Magnificence of his Soul and the Wealth therein deposited."

Between Payerne and Berne we coasted the beautiful and storied Lake of Morat, its surface of sleepy blue glistering by an afternoon sunlight, and its tranquil woods tinctured with just as much pallid gold as might proclaim that the magician autumn was gently hinting his intentions of dressing them in his own gaudy livery, and then stripping them altogether.

Every one knows that here Charles le Temeraire or Le Hardi-which be pleased to translate Foolhardy-rehearsed his last battle; and losing all his magnificent baubles of gold and jewels, barely escaped with his life, which, by all accounts, he scarcely valued so highly.

O! how much more applicable to this Bravo Prince than to the mightiest Julius is that gasconade which Shakespeare puts into Cæsar's mouth:

"Danger knows full well

That Cæsar is more dangerous than he:
We were two Lions littered in one day,
And I the Elder and more Terrible!"

Act ii. Scene 2.

184

AUTUMN.

September 24, 1844.

WHY is Autumn so dear to every Lover of Nature, and to contemplative minds in general? Why, when we behold the traces of perishing loveliness in every stained leaf, and every tarnished herb, do our feelings experience a sudden revulsion, an arrest as it were of affectionate admiration, as if we had only then begun to love the beauties we were then beginning to lose?

Ask the man who is parting from a Friend, whose society he has long enjoyed, whose valuable and amiable qualities he has long reverenced and loved, and whose conversation has opened up to him many a bright pure fountain of delight, yet towards whom long habitual intercourse had restrained any enthusiastic burst of affection, nay, with whom he had perhaps frequently quarrelled; ask him, I say, why he is so deeply affected at the loss of gratifications of which he had often slighted the possession,-and he will answer, "It is not that my affection for my friend was colder, when he was always near me than now when he is going from me; but that his many good qualities impress me with tenfold power now that they cast their parting light upon that dismal void, that cheerless Solitude, which will inévitably succeed his departure. It is not that I now dis

OLD FRIENDS PARTING.

185

cover a faultless character, where formerly I discerned many flaws; but it is the reflection that one who was so beloved by me, is about to be lost to my society, which impels me with anxious fondness to cherish the last moments of his stay, and calls forth an assiduous display of that love which I have always felt for him, but never till now thought of exhibiting. While we basked in the unrestricted freedom of each other's society, while no thought of separation cast its warning shadow over us, we often became wantonly careless of each other's merits, sometimes querulous, and (it might be) even quarrelsome. Sometimes his Wit though brilliant became obnoxious, sometimes his Satire was too withering to be laughed at; he would often be insufferably ardent, when I was dull and phlegmatic, and often when my inclination led me to be lively, he would throw a dismal damp over my happiest efforts.

"But now I see only the solemn tenderness of his mournful countenance; now I mark only his bursting tear; listen only to his suppressed sigh; and while each finds an answer in my own saddened heart, I feel almost as if to worship him would scarcely do justice to the intense poignancy of my feelings."

Even thus is Autumn so thrillingly endeared to us, because it signals the departure of that Season whose gifts have gladdened more than its penalties annoyed; and whose receding loveliness becomes the more precious in proportion as the advances

186 THE GRACES OF THE DECLINE.

of its cheerless Successor becomes more evident and more appalling.

There is something in the very nature of a bright October day eminently adapted to composure and meditation. The calm clear azure of the noontide sky, which developes with magical precision all the enchantment of distance, presenting the purple Hills, the sunrobed Spire or Tower, the red and white Farmhouses, the clear Pool, the particoloured Crofts, and the mouldering Woods so distinctly, that they seem close at hand. The harmless effulgence of the midday sun, into whose very eye one looks not only unshrinking but gladdened, gives a holyday air to all Creation. How well do those two lines of Logan give the character of this pensive season:

"Behold! congenial Autumn comes,
The sabbath of the year."

A Sabbath indeed; a solemn Sabbath, on which Nature appears to have entered again into her Rest, satiate but not worn out with her various toils. The Fields have surrendered their golden floods; the Orchards have shaken down their painted treasures; the Forests have completed their pleasant shadework; the Hedgerows have produced their wilding vintage, and in all their gaudy colouring ripen beneath the sedate sunshine. The tawny Fern waves its feathers upon their steep banks, while on their particoloured foliage the vermillion Hip, the crimson Haw, the