TWELFTH WEEK-FRIDAY.

MISCELLANEOUS REFLECTIONS ON AUTUMNAL APPEARANCES.

I SHALL, in the present paper, group together some extracts from different authors, containing interesting remarks on autumnal appearances towards the end of the

season.

"The last rays of the summer's sun, ," says Sturm, "now fall feebly on the earth: every thing is changed. That country, which so lately bloomed in verdant beauty and blushing charms, is becoming poor, withered, and barren. We no longer see the trees rich in blossoms, nor the spring gay with verdure; the magnificence of summer, displayed in a thousand variations of colors, whose richness is relieved by the beautiful green of the meadows and waving groves, is no more. The purple hue of the vine has faded, and the gilded ears no longer ornament the fields. The last leaves of the trees are falling; the pines, the elms, and the oaks bend beneath the blasts of the fierce north wind; and the fields, which have lavished upon us so many gifts, are at length exhausted.

"These sad changes must necessarily diminish our pleasures. When the earth has lost her verdure, gayety, and beauty,-when the fields are swampy, and gloominess reigns,―man is deprived of many of those delights, that he receives through the medium of sight. When the earth

is thus destitute, nothing is seen around but a rugged and uneven surface. The songs of the birds no longer rejoice our ears, and there is nothing that recalls to our minds that universal delight, which we so lately shared with all animated beings. The melody of the birds yields to the murmuring of the waters, and the howling of the winds. The fragrance of the fields is gone, and the sense of feeling is pained by the impression of cold and humid air.

"But, in the midst of these gloomy prospects, we have reason to acknowledge how faithfully Nature fulfils the eternal law prescribed to her, of being useful at all times

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and seasons of the year. Though, at the approach of winter, the country is desolate, and stripped of its most beautiful ornaments, it still presents, to a properly organized mind, the image of happiness. We may say with gratitude, Here we have seen the corn grow, and these dry fields crowned with an abundant harvest; and, notwithstanding the orchards and gardens are now deserted, the remembrance of the presents we have received from them, inspires us with joy, though we are exposed to the influence of the north wind.'

"The fruit-trees have now shed their leaves; the grass of the meadows is withered; dark clouds gather in the sky; the rain falls in heavy showers; the roads are impaired, and walking abroad is almost impracticable. The man who has no resources in himself, murmurs at this change; but the philosopher contemplates it with satisfaction. The sere leaves and withered grass, moistened by the autumnal rains, form a rich manure to fertilize the land. This consideration, and the sweet expectation of spring, naturally ought to excite our gratitude for the tender cares of our Creator, and inspire us with a perfect confidence in Him. Whilst the earth has lost its beauty and external charms, and is exposed to the complaints of those it has nourished and delighted, it has commenced its labors anew, and is busily employed in secret working for the future good of the creation."

To these just, but somewhat trite, reflections, may be added the following contemplations on an autumnal evening, from another author, of a deeper and more melancholy cast of thought.

"It is as combining the decline of the day with that of the year, the period both of beauty and decay, that an evening in autumn becomes so generally the parent of ideas of a solemn and pathetic cast. Not only, as in the first of these instances, do we blend the sunset of physical with that of moral being; but a further source. of similitude is unavoidably suggested in the failure and decrepitude of the dying year,—a picture faithfully, and, in some points of view, mournfully, emblematic of the closing hours of human life.

"With the daily retirement of the sun, and the gradual approach of twilight,—though circumstances, as we have seen, often associated in our minds with the transitory tenure of human existence, there are usually connected so many objects of beauty and repose, as to render such a scene, in a high degree, soothing and consolatory; but, with the customary decline of light, are now united the sighing of the coming storm,-the eddying of the withered foliage ;

"These are occurrences, which so strongly appeal to our feelings, which so forcibly remind us of the mutability of our species, and bring before us with such expressive solemnity, the earth as opening to receive us, that they have, from the earliest stages of society, and in every stage of it, been considered as typical of the brevity and destiny of man. 'Like leaves on trees,' says the first and great

est of all uninspired writers,*

"Like leaves on trees the race of man is found,

Now green in youth, now withering on the ground ;
Another race the following spring supplies,

They fall successive, and successive rise.

So generations in their course decay,

So flourish these when those are passed away.' "+

The sentiment of melancholy which the closing weeks of autumn thus forcibly impress on the mind, is not, however, of a painful or oppressive nature. It is, on the contrary, productive of a chastened pleasure, which tends to elevate our moral nature, and which thus affords us a new proof of the never-failing beneficence of the God of the Seasons. This effect is finely expressed by St. Pierre, * Homer, Iliad, iii.

+ Drake's Evenings in Autumn.

with whose reflections on such a state of mind I shall close these extracts.

"Beneficent Nature converts all her phenomena into so many sources of pleasure to man; and, if we attend to her procedure, it will be found that her most common appearances are the most agreeable. I enjoy pleasure, for example, when I see old mossy walls dripping, and hear the whistling of the wind, mingled with the pattering of rain. These melancholy sounds, in the night time, throw me into a soft and profound repose.

"I cannot tell to what physical law philosophers may refer the sensations of melancholy, but I consider them as the most voluptuous affections of the soul. Melancholy is dainty. This proceeds from its gratifying at once the body and the soul; the sentiment of our misery and of our excellence.

"In bad weather, the sentiment of my human misery is tranquillized by seeing it rain, while I am under cover; by hearing the wind blow violently, while I lie comfortably in bed. I in this case enjoy a negative felicity.

With this are afterwards blended some of those sentiments of the Divinity, the perception of which communicates such exquisite pleasure to the soul. It looks as if Nature were then conforming to my situation, like a sympathizing friend. She is, besides, at all times so interesting, under whatever aspect she exhibits herself, that, when it rains, I think I see a beautiful woman in tears. She seems to me more beautiful, the more that she wears the appearance of affliction.

"In order to be impressed with these sentiments, which I venture to call voluptuous, I must have no project in hand of a pleasant walk, of visiting, of hunting, which perhaps would put me into a bad humor. To enjoy bad weather, our soul must be travelling abroad, and the body at rest. From the harmony of those two powers of our constitution, the most terrible revolutions of Nature frequently interest us more than her gayest scenery.'

X.

TWELFTH WEEK-SATURDAY.

THE LANDSCAPE AT THE CLOSE OF AUTUMN.

THE weather of each season not only differs from that of another, in its main features and characteristics, but in many minute circumstances, which are not so frequently the subject of remark. In spring and autumn, for example, though the length of the days, and the amount of sunshine are nearly equal, yet the state of the atmosphere, and the composition of the whole landscape, are, in most respects, entirely dissimilar.

The fields, relieved of their various produce, at present wear a brown and withered aspect. Occasionally, an aftergrowth of tender grass sprinkles the decaying stubble with its verdure; but the farmer soon disperses his cattle over the field, and they immediately graze it bare. The hawthorn hedges have lost nearly all their foliage, though many of their ripe and ruddy haws still survive, to be mellowed by the earlier winter frosts. They now discover the bird-nests which, the summer long, they concealed from the schoolboy's curious eye. The woods are almost stripped of their robes, and the long, rank, but now withering grass beneath the trees, is matted with the multitude of putrefying leaves. The brooks, of all sizes, are now much less limpid and gentle in their flow, than during the dry days of summer. They are sensibly swollen with rains; and, as the soil is now bare and miry, their hitherto stainless waters have become turbid and discolored.

The morning, at this period of the year, is in general moist and raw. The full-formed and pearly dew, so common in summer, is seldom seen; but the ground is wetted by the chilling and uncomfortable fog. As the day advances, however, the sky brightens, the sun shines forth, and the ground gets drier. Yet a soft, white haze broods over the scene, and covers, as with a thin veil, the brows of the loftier hills. There is a calmness in the