-which from her green lap throws

The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose:

it is indeed pregnant with all the rank luxuriance of a rich and unturned soil. It displays prodigious vivacity of mind, which, like a burning glass, collects a thousand scattered rays to one point. Let but a thought present itself, and he straight chases it through all its possible turnings and doublings, till he fairly loses himself in the meanderings of his own fancy-his whole soul is animated with the wild spirit of joy-he actually reels with delight. He possessed a singular cast of wit, which surprises us with the most unheard-of resemblances-the most novel discordances, but he mingles them, however, with the most exquisite observation of nature, and the most beautiful imaginationsthe false, the affected, and the true, alternately and in such rapid succession, as scarcely to be severed, "take the prison'd senses and lap 'em in elysium." Such is the vigor, and such the vagaries, of Cyrano. What we shall extract may be considered as mere sports of fancy-strange things told in a strange way; and we are willing that they should be so considered.

Hear part of his description of Winter :

"Winter is a six months' death fallen upon one whole side of the globe, which we cannot escape; 'tis a short old-age of things animated; 'tis a being that hath no action, which never comes near us (be we never so stout) but he makes us quake; our porous, delicate, and fine slender bodye, shrink up, become hard, and hasten to close its passages, to baricadoe a million of invisible dores, and to cover them with little mountaines: it is moved, contends, and blushing gives this for excuse, that its shiverings are sallies that it purposely makes to beat off the enemy from its out-works. Finally, 'tis a miracle that we resist the destiny of all living creatures. This tyrant is not content to silence our birds, to strip our trees, to cut Ceres's locks, nay, and her eares to boot, and to have left our grand-mother stark naked and bare; but that we might not fly by water to a more temperate climate, he hath enclosed them with diamant walls; and least the rivers by their motion should have caused some heat to helpe us, he hath made them fast to their beds. But he exceeds all this; for to affright us by the very image of prodigies which he invents for our destruction, he makes us mistake the ice for a hardened light, a petrified day, a solid nothing, or some horrible monster whose body is nothing but an eye. The Seine at first, affrighted at the teares of heaven, was troubled, and fearing some more sad disaster would have befallen her inhabitants, stopt her course, and kept herselfe in a readinesse upon occasion to assist us. Mankind, being likewise terrified at the prodigies of this horrible season, gather from it presages proportionable to their feares; if it snow, they presently imagine the milky way is dissolving, that the heavens foame for madnesse at the losse of it, and that the earth, out of care to her children, for feare becomes gray. They fancy likewise;

the universe to be a great tart, that this monster (winter) strowes sugar upon, intending to devoure it; that the snow is the foame of the plants that dye mad; and conclude that the cold winds are the last sighs of languishing nature. I myselfe, that use to interpret all things for the best, and that in another season should have perswaded myselfe, that the snow was the vegetative milk, that the planets suckled the plants withall, or the crumbs that after grace fall from God Almighty's table, am now carried away with the torrent of examples. If it hail, I cry out, what punishments are reserved for us sinners, since the innocent heavens [are gravelled?] Would I describe those frozen winds, so great, that they overwhelm towers and castles, and yet so small, that they are invisible; I cannot imagine what to call them, unlesse the blustrings of some divells broke loose, which, having binne benumbed under ground, run about to catch themselves a heat. Every thing that is like winter puts me into a fright; I cannot endure a looking glasse because of its resemblance with ice, I shun physitians because they are called snowie or gray doctors, and I can convict the cold of many murders; for, in most of the houses in Paris where I have seen jelly,* there hath been a dying person."

And of Spring:

"Weepe no more, faire weather is returned; the sunne is reconciled to mankind, and his heat hath made winter find his leggs, as benumbed as they were; he hath lent him onely strength enough to run away, and those long nights that seemed to goe but a step in an hour, (for being in the darke they durst not run) are as farre from us as the first that layed Adam to sleep. The aire, not long since so condensed by the frost, that there was not room enough for the birds, seems now to be but a great imaginary space, where shrill musitians (hardly supported by our thoughts) appeare in the skye like little worlds, ballanced by their proper centre: there were no colds in the country whence they came, for here they chatter sweetly. Lord! what a noise they make! doubtlesse they are at law for those lands, Winter, at his death, made them heires of. This jealous old tyrant, not content to have rung all creatures, had frozen the very rivers, that they might not produce so much as their images; and maliciously turned the quicksilver of those running looking glasses towards them, which had so continued if the Spring at his returne had not rectified them."

*

*

"Nature brings forth in all places, and her children as they are borne, play in their cradles. Consider the Zephyrus which dares hardly breathe in fear, how she playes and courts the corne. One would think the grasse the haire of the earth, and this wind a combe that is carefull to untangle it. I think the very sunne woes this season, for I have observed that wheresoever he retires, he still keeps close to her. Those insolent northern winds that braved us in the absence of this god of tranquillity, (surprized at his coming) unite themselves to his rayes, to obtaine his pardon by their caresses, and those that are greater offenders hide them

* Gelée,-frost or jelly.

selves in his atomes, and are quiet for feare of being discovered: all things that are not hurtfull enjoy a free life, nay our very soul wanders beyond her confines, to show she is not under restraint. I think nature's at a wedding, we see nothing but dances, feasts, and balls; and he that should seek a quarrell, would not have the contentment to find one, unlesse those that arise amongst the flowers contending for beauty; where 'tis possible you may see a bloody pink, newly come from combat, fall with wearinesse; there a rosebud, sweld by the ill successe of his antagonist, blowes for joy; there the lilly, that collosse amongst flowers, that curded giant, proud to see his image triumph in the Loire, raises himself above his fellowes, looks down upon them, and makes the violet prostrate herselfe at his feet; which, being jealous and angry, that she cannot rise to the same heighth, doubles her sweetnesse, that our noses may give her that precedency which our eyes deny her; there, a bunch of thyme humbles itself before the tulip, because she beares a chalice; in another place, the earth, vext that the trees carry the blossomes and flowers she hath crowned them withall so high and remote from her, refuses to give them any fruits till they have returned her her flowers."

A few more of his pleasant extravagancies on Summer, and we have done with the seasons.

"For my part, I know not henceforward what posture this poor god [the sun] can put himself into to please us: he sends the birds to give us good-morrow with their musick, he hath warmed our bathes, and doth not invite us to them, till he hath first plunged himself in to see if there be any danger. What could he adde to all these honours, unlesse to eat at our table? And judge you what he seeks when he is never neerer our houses than at noon. After all this, sir, do you complain that he dryes up the humours of our rivers? Álas, were it not for this attraction, what would have become of us? The floods, the lakes, and the fountains, have sucked up all the water that made the earth fertile; and we are angry that, to the hazard of giving the middle region the dropsie, hee undertakes to draine 'em, and walks the clouds, those great watring-pots, over us, with which he quenches the thirst of our fields, at a season in which he is so much taken with our beauties, that he endeavours to see us naked. I cannot imagine, if hee did not attract a great quantity of water to cool his raies, how he could kisse us without burning us; but whatsoever we pretend, we have alwayes water enough to spare, for when the canicular, by his heat, leaves us but precisely enough for our necessities, hath he not taken care the dogs should run mad, for feare they should drinke any from us?"

"Besides, if he intended to burn us, he would not send the dew to cool and refresh us; that blessed dew, that makes us believe, by his infinite drops of light, that the torch of the world is in the dust in our fields; that a million of little heavens are fallen upon the earth, or that it is the soul of the universe, that, knowing not what honour to render to his father, goes out to meet and receive him on the tops of

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odoriferous flowers. The country-fellow, he thinks they are silver-lice falne from the sun's head, which he combs in the morning: anotherwhile, he believes the sweat of the aire, corrupted by heat, hath bred these glittering wormes; or takes it for the spittle that falls from the planets' mouths as they sleep: to conclude, let it be what it will, it imports not. Were they amorous tears, her grief becomes her too well to afflict us: besides, this is a time that nature puts all her treasures into our powers; the sun in person waites on the beds of Ceres, and every eare of corne seems a bakehouse of little milky loaves which he hath taken the pains to bake. If any one complaines that his too long stay with us makes our leaves and fruits yellow, let him know that this monarque of the starres does it to make our climate the garden of the Hesperides, by giving golden leaves to the trees as well as golden fruits: notwithstanding all this, 'tis to little purpose for him to heate himselfe in his zodiak with the lyon; he cannot stay four and twenty houres with the virgin, but he'ell be enamoured ;-he'ell every day grow colder," &c. &c.

What a fantastic yet agreeable description have we of the shadow of trees in the water, upon which Cyrano seems to have gazed, until his own head swam with delight.

"Lying on my belly upon the green banck of a river, and my back strecht under the branches of a willow that views himselfe in it, I see the history of Narcissus renued in the trees; a hundred poplars tumble a hundred other poplars into the stream, and these aquatiques were so frighted at the fall, that they tremble still every day for feare of a wind that touches them not. I imagine, that night having made all things black, the sun plunged them in the river to wash them. But what shall I say of this liquid glasse, this little world turned topsie-turvy, that places the oakes under the mosse, and the heavens lower than the oakes? Are they not of those virgins formerly metamorphosed into trees, that still finding their chastity violated by the kisses of Apollo, desperatly cast themselves into the flood with their head formost; or is it not Apollo himselfe, who, offended that they durst keep the aire from him, hath thus hanged them by the feet. Now the fish walke in the woods, and whole forrests in the midst of the water without wetting themselves: there's an old elme amongst the rest would make you laugh, which doth almost loll on the other side, to the end that this image taking the same posture, he might make of his body and his shadow an angle for the fish: the river is not ingratefull to the willowes for their visites; she hath made the universe, bored through, transparent, lest the down of her head should foule their branches; and not content to have made crystall with mud, she hath vaulted the heavens and the planets underneath, that it might not be said, that those that visited her were deprived of the light which they forsook for her. Now we may look downe on the heavens, and by her light may brag, that, as weak as he is at four in the morning, he has the power to precipitate the heavens into the deep but admire the power that the lower region of the soul exer

cises upon the higher. After having discovered that all these wonders are but delusions of the sense, I cannot for all hinder my sight, from taking this imaginary firmament for a great lake on which the earth floates. The nightingale, who from the top of a bough sees himselfe in it, believes he's fallen into the river; he is on the top of an oake and yet is afraid of being drowned; but, after having freed himselfe by his eyes and his feet from feare, his picture then seeming a rivall come to combate, he chatters, and warbles, and that other nightingale, to his thinking, silently does the same, and cozens the soul with so many charms, that one would fancy he sung purposely to be heard by our eyes; I think he by motion chatters and sends no sound at all to the ear that he may at the same time answer his enemy, and that he may not infringe the lawes of that country he inhabites, whose people are dumb the perch, the trout, and the goldenie, that see him, know not whether it be a fish clothed with feathers, or a bird devested of his body; they gather about him, and look on him as a monster; and the pike, the tyrant of the rivers, jealous to see a stranger in his throne, seeks him; when he hath found him, touches him and yet cannot feel him, runs after him when he's upon him, and wonders that he hath so often passed by him without doing him any hurt."

We specially beg the attention of all ladies who have red hair, to our author's ardent vindication of its supremacy.

"Glorious fruit of the essence of the most beautifull visible being! intelligent reflection of the radicall fire of nature! image of the sun, the most perfect! I am not so brutish as to mistake for my queen, the daughter of him that my ancestors acknowledged for their god. Athens bemoaned the fall of her crown, in the ruine of Apollo's temple; Rome ceased to command the world, when she denyed incense to the light and Bizantium first began to inslave mankind, when she tooke for her arms those of the sun's sister: as long as Persia did homage to this universall spirit, for the rayes that she held from him, foure thousand years could not make old the vigor of her monarchy; but being ready to see his images broken, he took sanctuary in Pequin from the abuses of Babylon."

"A brave head, covered with red hair, is nothing else but the sun in the midst of his rayes; or the sun himself is onely a great eye under a red periwig; yet all the world speaks ill of it, because few have the honour to be so. And among a hundred ladies, you shall hardly find one, because they being sent from heaven to command, it's necessary there should be more subjects than soveraigns. Do we not see, that all things in nature are more or less noble, according as they are more or less red; amongst the elements, he that contains the most essence, and the least matter or substance, is the fire, because of his colour; gold hath received of his dye, the honour to reign over the metalls; and of all the planets, the sun is most considerable, onely because he is most red; the hairy comets that flie up and down the skies, at the death of heroes, are they not the red mustachoes of the gods, that they pluck off for griefe ? Castor and

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