MARCH.

“I shall not ask Jean Jacques RousseauIf birds confabulate, or no;”

but shall determine at once that they do; at least if any dependence can be placed on eyes and ears. In short, the only bird that reallyisa bird this month, is he “with the red stomacher.” And he, with his low plaintive piping, his silent spirit-like motions, and sudden and mysterious appearings and disappearings,—coming in an instant before us no one can tell whence, and going as silently and as suddenly no one knows whither,—and, above all, his sweet and pert, yet timid confidence in man—all these, to those who are happy enough to have nothing better to do than to watch them, almost make up for the absence of all his blithe brethren.

As for the general face of nature, we shallfindthatin much the same apparent state as we left it last month. And we must look into its individual features very minutely, if we would discover any change even in them. The trees are still utterly bare; the skies are cold and gray; the paths and ways are, for the most part, dank and miry; and the air is either damp and clinging, or bitter, eager, and shrewd. But then what days of soft air and sunshine, and unbroken blue sky, do now and then intervene, and transport us into the very heart of May, and make us look about and wonder what is become of the green leaves and the flowers!

Now, hard frosts, if they come at all, are followed by sudden thaws; and now, therefore, if ever, the mysterious old song of our school days stands a chance of being verified, which sings of

“Three children sliding on the iceAll on asummer’sday!”

Now, the labour of the husbandman recommences; and it is pleasant to watch (from your library window) the plough-team moving almost imperceptibly along, upon the distant upland that the bare trees have disclosed to you. And now, by the way, if you are wise, you will get acquainted with all the little spots that are thus,by the bareness of the trees, laid open to you, in order that, when the summer comes, and you cannotlook atthem, you may be able toseethem still.

But we must not neglect the garden; for though “Nature’s journeymen,” the gardeners, are undergoing an ignoble leisure this month, it is not so with Nature herself. She is as busy as ever, if not openly and obviously, secretly, and in the hearts of her sweet subjects the flowers; stirring them up to that rich rivalry of beauty which is to greet the first footsteps of Spring, and teaching them to prepare themselves for her advent, as young maidens prepare, months beforehand, for the marriage festival of some dear friend.

If the flowers think and feel (and he who dares to say that they do not is either a fool or a philosopher—let him choose between the imputations!)—if the flowers think and feel, what a commotion must be working within their silent hearts, when the pinions of Winter begin to grow, and indicate that he is at least meditating his flight! Then dothey, too, begin to meditate on May-day, and think on the delight with which they shall once more breathe the fresh air, whenthey have leave to escape from their subterranean prisons; for now, towards the latter end of this month, they are all of them at least awake from their winter slumbers, and most are busily working at their gay toilets, and weaving their fantastic robes, and shaping their trim forms, and distilling their rich essences, and, in short, getting ready in all things, that they may be duly prepared to join the bright procession of beauty that is to greet and glorify the annual coming on of their sovereign lady, the Spring. It is true none of all this can be seen. But what a race should we be, if we knew and cared to know of nothing, but what we can see and prove!

“Whose mind is but the mind of his own eyes,He is a slave—the meanest you can meet.”

But there is much going on in the garden now that may be seen by “the naked eye” of those who carefully look for it. The bloom-buds of the shrubs and fruit-trees are obviously swelling; and the leaves of the lilac are ready to burst forth at the first favourable call. The laurestinus still braves the winds and the frosts, and blooms in blithe defiance of them. So does the China rose, but meekly, and like a maiden whowillnot droop though her loverbeaway; because sheknows that he is true to her, and will soon return.

Now, too, the viable heralds of Spring approach, but do not appear; or rather, they appear, but have not yet put on their gorgeous tabards or surcoats of many colours. The tulips are but just showing themselves, shrouded closely in their sheltering alcoves of dull green. The hyacinths, too, have sent up their trim fences of green, and are just peeping up from the midst of them in their green veils,—the cheek of each flower-bud pressed and clustering against that of its fellow, like a host of little heads peeping out from the porch of an ivy-bound cottage, as the London coach passes.

Now, too, those pretty orphans, the crocuses and snowdrops—those foundlings, that belong neither to Winter nor Spring—show their modest faces scarcely an inch above the dark earth, as if they were afraid to rise from it, lest a stray March wind should whistle them away.

Finally, now appear, towards the latter end of the month, those flowers that actually belong to Spring—that do not either herald her approach, or follow in her train, but are in fact a part of her, and prove that she is virtually with us,though she chooses to remain incognita for a time. The prettiest and most piquant of these in appearance are the brilliant little Hepaticas, crowding up in sparkling companies from the midst of their dark ivy-like leaves, and looking more like gems than flowers.

The next in brilliance are the Anemonies, as gay in their colours, and more various, but not so profuse of their charms as their pretty relation Hepatica, and more jealous of each other’s beauty; as well they may, for what flower can vie with them for exquisite delicacy of hue and elegant fragility?

The primroses, polyanthuses, and daisies that venture to show themselves this month, we will not greet; not because we are not even more pleased to see them than their gayer and more gaudy rivals; but the truth is, that they have no real claim upon our attention till next month, as their pale hues and weakly forms evidently indicate.

In taking leave of the Country for this month, let me not forget to mention that sure “prophet of delight and mirth,” the Common Pilewort, or Lesser Celandine; about which (and what more can I say to interest the reader in its favour?)Mr. Wordsworth has written two whole poems. Its little yellow stars may now be seen gemming the woodsides, when all around is cold, comfortless, and dead.

I have said that I designed to prove this to be the best of all possible months. Is the reader still incredulous as to its surpassing merits? Then be it known to him that I should insist on its supremacy, if it were only in virtue ofonebirthday which it includes: and one that the reader would never guess, for the best of all reasons. It isnotthat of “the wisest of mankind,” Lord Bacon, on the third; or of “the starry Galileo,” on the nineteenth; or of the “matchless master of high sounds,” Handel, on the twenty-fourth. True February does include all these memorable days, and let it be valued accordingly. But it includes another day, which is worth them allto me, since it gave to the world, the narrow world of some half dozen loving hearts, one who is wiser in her simplicity than the first of the abovenamed, since the results of that wisdom are virtue and happiness; who is more far-darting in her mental glance than the second, inasmuch as an instinctivesentimentof the truth is more infalliblethan the clearestperceptionof it; and whose every thought and look and motion are more “softly sweet” and musical than all the “Lydian measures” of the third; and, deprived of whom, those who have once been accustomed to live within the light of her countenance would find all the wisdom of the first to be foolishness, all the stars of the second dark, and all the harmony of the third worse than discord.

Gentlest of readers (for I had need have such), pardon me this one rhapsody, and I promise to be as “sobersuited” as the editor of an Encyclopedia, for this two months to come. Nothing, not even the nightingale’s song in the last week in April, shall move me from my propriety. But I will candidly confess, that the effects of May-day morning are more than I can venture to answer for. Even the chimney-sweepers are allowed to disport themselves then; so that when that arrives, there’s no knowing what may happen.

If there be a Month the aspect of which is less amiable, and its manners and habits less prepossessing, than those of all the rest (which I am loath to admit), that month is March. The burning heats of midsummer (when they shall come to us at the prophetic call of the Quarterly Reviewers—which they never will) we shall find no difficulty in bearing; and the frosts and snows of December and January are as welcome, to those who know their value, as the flowers in May. Nay—the so much vituperated fogs of November I by no means set my face against; on the contrary, I have a kind of appetite for them, both corporeal and mental; as I shall prove, and endeavour to justify in its due place.

In fact, and by the by, November is a month that has not been fairly dealt by; and, for my part, I think it should by no means have been fixed upon as that which ispar excellencethe month best adapted to hang and drown oneself in;—seeing that, to a wise man,thatshould never be an affair of atmosphere. But if a month must be set apart for such a proces, (on the same principle which determines that we are bound tobeginour worldly concerns on a particular day—viz. Saturday—and would therefore, by parity of reasoning, call upon us to end them with a similar view to times and seasons), let that month be henceforth March; for it has, at this present writing, no one characteristic by which to designate it,—being neither Spring, Summer, Autumn, nor Winter, but only March.

But what I particularly object to in March is its winds. They say

“March winds and April showersBring forth May flowers.”

But I doubt the fact. They maycallthem forth, perhaps,—whistling over the roofs of their subterraneous dwellings, to let them know that Winter is past and gone. Or, in our dispositionto “turn diseases to commodities,” let us regard them as the expectant damsel does the sound of the mail coach horn that whisks through the village, as she lies in bed at midnight, and tells her thatto-morrowshe may look for a letter from her absent swain.

The only other express and specific reason why I object to March, is that she drives hares mad; which is a great fault. But be all this as it may, she is still fraught with merits; and let us proceed, without more ado, to point out a few of them. And first of the country;—to which, by the way, I have not hitherto allowed its due supremacy—for

“God made the Country, but man made the Town.”

Now, then, even the winds of March, notwithstanding all that we have insinuated in their disfavour, are far from being virtueless; for they come careering over our fields, and roads, and pathways, and while they dry up the damps that the thaws had let loose, and the previous frosts had prevented from sinking into the earth, “pipe to the spirit ditties” the words of which tell tales of the forthcoming flowers. And not only so, but occasionally they are caught bearing awayupon their rough wings the mingled odours of violet and daffodil, both of which have already ventured to

“Come before the swallow dares, and takeThe winds of March with beauty.”

The general face of nature has not much changed in appearance since we left it in February; though its internal economy has made an important step in advance. The sap is alive in the seemingly sleeping trunks that every where surround us, and is beginning to mount slowly to its destination; and the embryo blooms are almost visibly struggling towards light and life, beneath their rough, unpromising outer coats—unpromising to the idle, the unthinking, and the inobservant; but to the eye that “can see Othello’s visage in his mind,” bright and beautiful, in virtue of the brightness and the beauty that they cover, but not conceal. Now, too, the dark earth becomes soft and tractable, and yields to the kindly constraint that calls upon it to teem with new life,—crumbling to the touch, that it may the better clasp in its fragrant bosom the rudiments of that gay, but ephemeral creation which are born with the spring, only “to runtheir race rejoicing” into the lap of summer, and there yield up their sweet breath, a willing incense at the shrine of that nature the spirit of which is endless constancy growing out of endless change. Must I tell the reader this in plainer prose?—Now, then, is the time to sow the seeds of most of the annual flowering plants; particularly of those which we all know and love—such as Sweet Pea, the most feminine of flowers, that must have a kind hand to tend its youth, and a supporting arm to cling to in its maturity, or it grovels in the dust, and straggles away into an unsightly weed; and Mignionette, with a name as sweet as its breath,—that loves “within a gentle bosom to be laid,” and makes haste to die there, lest its white lodging should be changed; and Larkspur, trim, gay, and bold, the gallant of the garden; and Lupines, blue, and yellow, and rose coloured, with their winged flowers hovering above their starry leaves; and a host of others, that we must try to characterise as they come in turn before us.

Now, too, we have some of the bulbous rooted flowers at their best, particularly the pretty Crocuses, yellow, blue, striped, and white; whileothers, the Narcissus, Hyacinths, and Tulips, are visibly hastening towards their perfection.

Those spring flowers, too, which ventured to show themselves last month before they had well recovered from their winter trance, have now grown bold in their renewed strength, and look the winds in the face fearlessly. Perhaps the most poetical of these, because the most pathetic in their pale and pining beauty, are the Primroses. Their bold and bright-eyed relatives the Polyanthuses (no two alike) are also now all on the look out for lovers, among the bees that the warm sunny mornings already begin to call forth.

These, with the still prevailing Hepaticas and Anemonies, the Daisies that start up singly here and there, an early Wall-flower, the pretty pink rods of the Mezereon, and (in the woods) the lovely Wind-flower, or white Wood-anemone, constitute the principal wealth of this preparatory month.

Now, too, the tender green of spring first begins to peep forth from the straggling branches of the hedge-row Elder, the trim Lilac, and the thin threads of the stream enamoured Willow;the first to put on its spring clothing, and the last to leave it off. And if we look into the kitchen garden, there too we may chance to find those forest trees in miniature, the Gooseberries and Currants, letting their leaves and blossoms (both of a colour) look forth together, hand in hand, in search of the April sun before it arrives, as the lark mounts upward to seek for it before it has risen in the morning. It will be well if these early adventurers-forth do not encounter a cutting easterly blast; or still worse, a deceitful breeze, that tempts them to its embraces by its milder breath, only to shower diseases upon them. But if theywillbe out on the watch for Spring before she calls them, they must be content to take their chance.

NOW, about the middle of the month, a strange commotion may be seen and heard among the winged creatures, portending momentous matters. The lark is high up in the cold air before day-light; and his chosen mistress is listening to him down among the dank grass, with the dew still upon her unshaken wing. The Robin, too, has left off, for a brief season, his low plaintive piping, which it must be confessed was pouredforth for his own exclusive satisfaction, and, reckoning on his spruce looks and sparkling eyes, issues his quick peremptory love-call, in a somewhat ungallant and husband-like manner.

The Sparrows, who have lately been sulking silently about from tree to tree, with ruffled plumes and drooping wings, now spruce themselves up till they do not look half their former size; and if it were not pairing-time, one might fancy that there was more of war than of love in their noisy squabblings. But the crouching forms, quivering wings, and murmuring bills, of yonder pair that have quitted for a moment the clamorous cabal, can indicate the movements of butonepassion.

But we must leave the feathered tribe for the present:

“Sacred be love from sight, whate’er it is.”

We shall have many opportunities of observing their pretty ways hereafter.

Now, also, the Ants (with whom we shall have a crow to pick by and by) first begin to show themselves from their subterranean sleeping-rooms; those winged abortions, the Bats, perplex the eyes of evening wanderers by their seeming ubiquity; and the Owls hold scientific converse with each other at half a mile distance.

Lastly, now we meet with one of the prettiest, yet most pathetic sights that the animal world presents; the early Lambs, dropped, in their tottering and bleating helplessness, upon the cold skirts of winter, and hiding their frail forms from the March winds, by crouching down on the sheltered side of their dams.

Now, quitting the country till next month, we find London all alive, Lent and Lady-day notwithstanding; for the latter is but a day, after all; and he must have a very countrified conscience who cannot satisfy it as to the former, by doing penance once or twice at an Oratorio, and hearing comic songs sung in a foreign tongue; or, if this does not do, he may fast if he pleases, every Friday, by eating salt fish in addition to the rest of his fare.

Now, the citizens have pretty well left off their annual visitings, and given the great ones leave to begin; so that there is no sleep to be had in the neighbourhood of May-fair, for love or money, after one in the morning.

Now, the dress boxes of the winter houses canoccasionally boast a baronet’s lady; this, however, being the extent of their attainments in that way; for how can the great be expected to listen to Shakespear under the same roof with their shop-keepers? There is, in fact, no denying that the said great are marvellously at the mercy of the said little, in the matter of amusement; and there is no saying whether the latter will not, some day or other, make an inroad upon Almack’s itself. Now, however, in spite of the said inroads, the best boxes at the Opera do begin to be worth exploring, since a beautiful Englishwoman of high fashion is “a sight to set before a king.”

Now, the actors (all but the singing ones) in their secret hearts put up periodical prayers for the annual agitation of the Catholic Question; for without some stimulus of this kind, to correct the laxity of our religious morals, there is no knowing how soon they may cease to give thanks for three Sundays in the week during Lent.

Now, (during the said pious period) occasionally an inadvertent apprentice gets leave to go to “the play” on a Wednesday or Friday; and, having taken his seat in the one shilling gallery, wonders during six long hours what can havecome to the players, that they do nothing but sit in a row with their hands before them, in front of a pyramid of fiddlers, and break silence now and then by singing a psalm; for a psalm he is sure it must be, though he never heard it at church.

Now, every other day, the four sides of the newspapers offer to the wearied eye one unbroken ocean oflong-primer; to the infinite abridgement of the labour of Chapter Coffee House quidnuncs, who find that they have only one sheet to get through instead of ten; and to the entire discomfiture of the conscientious reader, who makes it a point of duty to spell through all that he pays for, avowed advertisements included; for in these latter there is some variety—of which no one can accuse the parliamentary speeches. By the by, it would be but consistent in the Times to bestow their ingenuous prefix of [advertisement] on a few of the last named effusions. And if they were placed under the head of “Want Places,” nobody but the advertiser would see cause to complain of the mistake.

Now, Fashion is on the point of awaking from her periodical sleep, attended by Mesdames Bean, Bell, and Pierrepoint on one side of her couch,and Messieurs Myers, Stultz, and Davison on the other; each individual of each party watching with apparent anxiety to catch the first glance of her opening eye, in order to direct their several movements accordingly; but each having previously determined on those movements as definitively as if their legitimate monarch and directress had nothing to do with matter; for, to say truth, notwithstanding her boasted legitimacy, Fashion has but a very limited control, even in her own court; the real government being an Oligarchy, the members of which are each lords paramount in their own particular departments. Who, in fact, shall dispute an epaulet of Miss Pierrepoint’s? and when Mr. Myers has achieved a collar, who shall call it in question?

Now, Hyde Park is worth walking in at four o’clock of a fine week day, though the trees are still bare; for there, as sure as the sunshine comes, shall be seen sauntering beneath it three distinct classes of fashionables; namely, first, the fair immaculates from the mansions about May Fair, who loll listlessly in their elegant equipages, and occasionally eye, with an air of infinite disdain, the second class, who are peregrinating on the other side the bar,—the fair frailties from theneighbourhood of the New Road; which latter, more magnanimous than their betters, and less envious, are content, for their parts, to appropriate the greater portion of the attentions of the third class—the ineffables and exquisites from Long’s, and Stevens’s. Among these last-named class something particular indeed must have happened if you do not recognise thatarbiter elegantiarumof actresses, the marquis of W——; that delighter in dennets and decaying beauties, the honourable L—— S——; and that prince-pretty-man of rake-hells and roués little George W——.

April is come! “proud—pied April!” and “hath put a spirit of youth in every thing.” Shall our portrait of her, then, alone lack that spirit? Not if words can speak the feelings from which they spring. “Spring!” See how the name comes uncalled-for; as if to hint that it should have stood in the place of “April.” But Aprilisspring—the only spring month that we possess in this egregious climate of ours. Let us, then, make the most of it.

April is at once the most juvenile of the Months, and the most feminine—never knowing her own mind for a day together. Fickle as a fond maiden with her first lover;—coying it with the young Sun till he withdraws his beams from her, and then weeping till she gets them back again. High-fantastical as the seething wit of a poet, that sees a world of beauty growing beneath his hand, and fancies that he has created it, whereas it is it that has created him a poet; for it is Nature that makes April, not April Nature.

April is doubtless the sweetest month of all the year; partly because it ushers in the May, and partly for its own sake, so far as any thing can be valuable without reference to any thing else. It is, to May and June, what “sweet fifteen,” in the age of woman, is to passion-stricken eighteen, and perfect two-and-twenty. It is, to the confirmed Summer, what the previous hope of joy is to the full fruition; what the boyish dream of love is to love itself. It is indeed the month of promises; and what are twenty performances compared with one promise? When a promise of delight is fulfilled, it is over and done with; but while it remains a promise, it remains a hope: and what is all good, but the hope of good? What is everyto-dayof our life, but the hope (or the fear) of to-morrow? April, then, is worth two Mays, because it tells tales of May in every sigh that it breathes, and every tear that it lets fall. It is the harbinger, the herald, the promise, the prophecy, the foretaste of all the beauties that areto follow it—of all, and more—of all the delights of Summer, and all the “pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious” Autumn. It is fraught with beauties itself that no other month can bring before us, and

“It bears a glass which shews us many more.”

As for April herself, her life is one sweet alternation of smiles and sighs and tears, and tears and sighs and smiles, till it is consummated at last in the open laughter of May. It is like—in short, it is like nothing in the world but “an April day.” And her charms—but really I must cease to look upon the face of this fair month generally, lest, like a painter in the presence of his mistress, I grow too enamoured to give a correct resemblance. I must gaze upon her sweet beauties one by one, or I shall never be able to think and treat of her in any other light than that ofthe Spring; which is a mere abstraction,—delightful to think of, but, like all other abstractions, not to be depicted or described.

Before I proceed to do this, however, let me inform the reader that what I have hitherto said of April, and have yet to say, is intended toapply, not to this or that April in particular—not to April eighteen hundred and twenty-four, or fourteen, or thirty-four—but toAprilpar excellence; that is to say, what April (“not to speak it profanely”)ought to be. In short, I have no intention of beingpersonalin my remarks; and if the April which I am describing should happen to differ, in any essential particulars, from the one in whose presence I am describing it, neither the month nor the reader must regard this as a covert libel or satire. The truth is that, for what reason I know not—whether to put to shame the predictions of the Quarterly Reviewers, or to punish us Islanders for our manifold follies and iniquities, or from any quarrel, as of old, between Oberon and Titania—but certain it is that

“The seasons alter: hoary headed frostsFall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose;And on old Hyems’ thin and icy crownAn odorous chaplet of sweet summer budsIs, as in mockery, set: the Spring, the Summer,The chilling Autumn, angry Winter, changeTheir wonted liveries; and the amazed world,By their increase, now knows not which is which.”

It is of April, then, as she is when Nature is in her happiest mood, that I am now to speak;and we will take her in the prime of her life, and our first place of rendezvous shall be the open fields.

What a sweet flush of new green has started up to the face of this meadow! And the new-born Daisies that stud it here and there, give it the look of an emerald sky powdered with snowy stars. In making our way to yonder hedgerow, which divides the meadow from the little copse that lines one side of it, let us not take the shortest way, but keep religiously to the little footpath; for the young grass is as yet too tender to bear being trod upon; and the young lambs themselves, while they go cropping its crisp points, let the sweet daisies alone, as if they loved to look upon a sight as pretty and as innocent as themselves.

I have been hitherto very chary of appealing to the poets in these pleasant papers; because they are people that, if you give them an inch, even in a span-long essay of this kind, always endeavour to lay hands on the whole of it. They are like the young cuckoos, that if once they get hatched within a nest, always contrive to oust the natural inhabitants. But when the Daisy, “la douce Marguerite,” is in question, how canI refrain from pronouncing a blessing on the bard who has, by his sweet praise of this “unassuming commonplace of nature,” revived that general love for it, which, until lately, was confined to the hearts of “the old poets,” and of those young poets of all times, the little children? But I need not do this, for he has his reward already, in the fulfilment of that prophecy with which he closes his address to his darling flower:

“Thy long-lost praise thou shalt regain;Dear shalt thou be to future men,As in old time.”

Does the reader, now that I have brought before him, in company with each other, “this child of the year,” and the gentlest and most eloquent of all her lovers, desire to hear a few more of the compliments that he has paid to her, without the trouble of leaving the fields, and opening a book? I can afford but a few; for beneath yonder hedgerow, and within the twilight of the copse behind it, there are flocks of other sweet flowers, waiting for their praise.

“When soothed awhile by milder airs,Thee Winter in the garland wearsThat thinly shades his few gray hairs;Spring cannot shun thee;And Autumn, melancholy wight,Doth in thy crimson head delightWhen rains are on thee.”

[By the by, I cannot let pass this epithet, “melancholy,” without protesting most strenuously against the above application of it. Seldom, indeed, is it that the poet before us falls into an error of this kind; and it isthereforethat I point it out.]

“In shoals and bands, a morrice train,Thou greet’st the traveller in the lane.* * * *And oft alone in nooks remoteWe meet thee, like a pleasant thought,When such are wanted.Be violets, in their secret mews,The flowers the wanton Zephyrs choose;Proud be the Rose, with rains and dewsHer head impearling;* * * *Thouart the poet’s darling.If to a rock from rains he fly,Or some bright day of April skyImprisoned by hot sunshine lieNear the green holly,And wearily at length should fare,He need but look about, and thereThou art, a friend at hand, to scareHis melancholy!If stately passions in me burn,And one chance look to thee should turn,I drink out of an humbler urnA lowlier pleasure;The homely sympathy, that heedsThe common life our nature breeds;A wisdom fitted to the needsOf hearts at leisure.”

“In shoals and bands, a morrice train,Thou greet’st the traveller in the lane.* * * *And oft alone in nooks remoteWe meet thee, like a pleasant thought,When such are wanted.

Be violets, in their secret mews,The flowers the wanton Zephyrs choose;Proud be the Rose, with rains and dewsHer head impearling;* * * *Thouart the poet’s darling.

If to a rock from rains he fly,Or some bright day of April skyImprisoned by hot sunshine lieNear the green holly,And wearily at length should fare,He need but look about, and thereThou art, a friend at hand, to scareHis melancholy!

If stately passions in me burn,And one chance look to thee should turn,I drink out of an humbler urnA lowlier pleasure;The homely sympathy, that heedsThe common life our nature breeds;A wisdom fitted to the needsOf hearts at leisure.”

And then do but see what “fantastic tricks” the poet’s imagination plays, when he comes to seek outsimiliesfor his fair favourite:

“A nun demure, of lowly port;A sprightly maiden of love’s court,In thy simplicity the sportOf all temptations;A queen in crown of rubies drest;A starveling in a scanty vest;Are all, as seem to suit thee best,Thy appellations.A little Cyclops, with one eyeStaring, to threaten or defy—That thought comes next—and instantlyThe freak is over;The shape will vanish—and behold!A silver shield with boss of gold,That spreads itself, some fairy boldIn fight to cover.I see thee glittering from afar,—And then thou art a pretty star;Not quite so fair as many areIn heaven above thee!Yet like a star, with glittering crest,Self-poised in air thou seem’st to rest!* * * *Sweet flower! for by that name at last,When all my reveries are past,I call thee, and to that cleave fast;Sweet silent creature!That breath’st with me in sun and air,Do thou, as thou art wont, repairMy heart with gladness, and a shareOf thy meek nature!”

A little Cyclops, with one eyeStaring, to threaten or defy—That thought comes next—and instantlyThe freak is over;The shape will vanish—and behold!A silver shield with boss of gold,That spreads itself, some fairy boldIn fight to cover.

I see thee glittering from afar,—And then thou art a pretty star;Not quite so fair as many areIn heaven above thee!Yet like a star, with glittering crest,Self-poised in air thou seem’st to rest!* * * *

Sweet flower! for by that name at last,When all my reveries are past,I call thee, and to that cleave fast;Sweet silent creature!That breath’st with me in sun and air,Do thou, as thou art wont, repairMy heart with gladness, and a shareOf thy meek nature!”

What poetry is here! It “dallies with the innocence” of the poet and of the flower, till we know not which to love best. But we must turn at once from the fascination of both, and not allow them again to seduce us from our duty to the rest of those sweet “children of the year” that are courting our attention.

See, upon the sloping sides of this bank, beneath the hedgerow, what companies of Primroses are dedicating their pale beauties to the pleasant breeze that blows over them, and looking as faint withal as if they had senses that could “ache” at the rich sweetness of the hidden Violets that are growing here and there among them.

The intermediate spots of the bank are now nearly covered from sight by the various green weeds that sprout up every where—beginning to fill the interstices between the lower stems of the Hazel, the Hawthorn, the Sloe, the Eglantine, and the Woodbine, which unite their friendly arms together above, to form the natural inclosure,—that prettiest feature in our English scenery, or at least that which communicates a picturesque beauty to all the rest.

Of the above-named shrubs, the Hazel, you see, is scarcely as yet in leaf; the scattered leaves of the Woodbine, of a dull purplish green, are fully spread; the Sloe is in blossom, offering a pretty but scentless imitation of the sweet hawthorn bloom that is to come next month. This latter is now vigorously putting forth its crisp and delicate filigree work of tender green, tipped with red; and the Eglantine, or wild rose, is opening its green hands, as if to welcome the sun.

Entering the little copse which this inclosure separates from the meadow, we shall find, on the ground, all the low and creeping plants pushing forth their various shaped leaves—stars, fans, blades, fingers, fringes, and a score of other fanciful forms; and some of them bearing the prettiest flowers in the world. Conspicuous among these, in addition to those of February and March, are the elegant little Wood-sorrel, with its delicately pencilled cups; the pretty Wild Strawberry; the common blue Hyacinth,—so delightful when it comes upon you in innumerable flocks while you are thinking of nothing less; the gently-stooping Harebell, the most fragile of all flowers, yet braving the angriest winds of heaven, by bowing to the ground before them; and, lastly, that strangest of flowers (if flower it be) called by the country folks Cuckoo-pint, and by the children Lords and Ladies.

Still passing on through this copse, we shall find all the young forest trees, except the oaks, in a kind of half-dress, like so many village maidens in their trim bodices, and with their hair in papers. Among these are conspicuous the graceful Birch, hanging its head like a half-shamefaced, half-affected damsel; the trim Beech, spruce as a village gallant dressed for the fair; the rough-rinded Elm, grave and sedate looking, even in its youth, and already bespeaking the future “green-robed senator of mighty woods.” These, with the white-stemmed Ash, the Alder, the artificial-looking Hornbeam, and the as yet bare Oak, make up this silent but happy company, who are to stand here on the same spot all their lives, looking upward to the clouds and the stars, and downward to the star-like flowers, till we and our posterity (who pride ourselves on our superiority over them) are laid in thatearth of whichtheyalone are the true inheriters.

But who ever heard of choosing a warm April morning to moralize in? Let us wait till winter for that; and in the mean time pass out of this pleasant little copse, and make our way windingly towards the village.

In the little green lane that leads to it we meet with nothing very different from what we have already noticed; unless it be an early Bee booming past us, or hovering for a moment over the snowy flower of the Lady-smock; or a village boy looking upward with hand-shaded brow after the mounting Lark, while he holds in his other hand the tether of a young heifer, that he has led forth to take her first taste of the fresh-sprouting herbage.

On reaching the Village Green, we cannot choose but pause before this stately Chestnut-tree, the smooth stem of which rises from the earth like a dark coloured marble column, seemingly placed there by art to support the pyramidal fabric of beauty that surmounts it. It has just put forth its first series of rich fan-like leaves, each family of which is crowned by its splendid spiral flower; the whole, at this period of theyear, forming the grandest vegetable object that our kingdom presents, and vying in rich beauty with any that Eastern woods can boast. And if we could reach one of those flowers, to pluck it, we should find that the most delicate fair ones of the Garden or the Greenhouse do not surpass it in elaborate pencilling and richly varied tints. It can be likened to nothing but its own portrait painted on velvet.

Farther on, across the Green, with this little raised footpath leading to it, stands a row of young Lindens, separating in the middle to admit a view of the Parsonage-house; for it can be no other. What a lovely green is theirs! and what an exact shape in their bright circular leaves, all alike, clustering and flapping over each other! And their smooth pillar-like stems shoot out from the hard gravel pathway like artificial shafts, without a ridge, a knot, or an inequality, till they spread forth suddenly just above the reach of branch-plucking schoolboys.

The Honeysuckles, that wreathe the trellised door of the neat dwelling, have already put forth their dull purple-tinged leaves, at distant intervals, on the slim shoots; but the Jasmin, that spreads itself over the circular-topped windows, is not yet sufficiently clothed to hide the formality of its training.

To the right, the fine old avenue of Elms, forming the Walk leading to the low Church, are sprinkled all over with their spring attire; but not enough to form the shade that they will a month hence. At present the blue sky can every where be seen through them.

We might wander on through the Village and its environs for a while longer, pleasantly enough, without exhausting the objects of novelty and interest that present themselves in this sweetest of months; but we must get within more confined limits, or we shall not have space to glance at half those which more exclusively belong to this time.

If the Garden, like the Year, is not now absolutely at its best, it is perhaps better; inasmuch as a pleasant promise but half performed partakes of the best parts of both promise and performance. Now, all is neatness and finish, or ought to be; for the weeds have not yet began to make head; the annual flower seeds are all sown; the divisions and changes among the perennials, and the removings and plantings of theshrubs, have all taken place. The Walks, too, have all been turned and freshened, and the Turf has began to receive its regular rollings and mowings. Among the bulbous-rooted perennials, all that were not in flower during the last two months, are so now; in particular the majestic Crown-imperial; the Tulip, beautiful as the panther, and as proud,—standing aloof from its own leaves; the rich double Hyacinth, clustering like the locks of Adam; and Narcissus, pale and passion-stricken at the sense of its own sweetness.

But what we are chiefly to look for now are the fibrous-rooted and herbaceous Perennials. There is not one of these that has not awakened from its winter dreams, and put on at least the half of its beauty. A few of them venture to display all their attractions at this time, from a wise fear of that dangerous rivalry which they must be content to encounter if they were to wait for a month longer; for a pretty villager might as well hope to gain hearts at Almack’s, as a demure daisy of a modest polyanthus think to secure its due share of attention in presence of the glaring peonies, flaunting roses, and towering lilies of May and midsummer.

Now, too, those late planted Stocks and Wallflowers, that have had strength to brave the cutting blasts of winter, feel the benefit of their hardihood, and show it in the profusion of their blooms and the richness of their colours.

Finally, among flowers we have now the singular spotted Fritillary; Heart’s-ease, the “little western flower,” that cannot be looked at or thought of without feeling its name; and the Auricula, that richest in its texture and colour of all the vegetable tribe, and as various as rich.

Among the Shrubs that form the inclosing belt of the flower-garden, the Lilac is in full leaf, and loaded with its heavy bunches of bloom-buds; the common Laurel, if it has reached its flowering age, is hanging out its meek modest flowers, preparatory to putting forth its vigorous summer shoots; and the Larch has on it hairy tufts of pink, stuck here and there among its delicate threads of green.

But the great charm of this month, both in the open country and the garden, is undoubtedly the infinitegreenwhich pervades it every where, and which we had best gaze our fill at while we may, as it lasts but a little while,—changing in a few weeks into an endless variety of shades andtints, that are equivalent to as many different colours. It is this, and the budding forth of every living member of the vegetable world, after its long winter death, that in fact constitutesthe Spring; and the sight of which affects us in the manner it does, from various causes—chiefly moral and associated ones; but one of which is unquestionably physical: I mean the sight of so much tender green after the eye has been condemned to look for months and months on the mere negation of all colour, which prevails in winter in our climate. The eye feels cheered, cherished, and regaled by this colour, as the tongue does by a quick and pleasant taste, after having long palated nothing but tasteless and insipid things.

This is the principal charm of Spring, no doubt. But another, and one that is scarcely second to this, is, the bright flush of Blossoms that prevails over and almost hides every thing else in the Fruit-garden and Orchard. What exquisite differences and distinctions and resemblances there are between all the various blossoms of the fruit-trees; and no less in their general effect than in their separate details! TheAlmond-blossom, which comes first of all, and while the tree is quite bare of leaves, is of a bright blush-rose colour; and when they are fully blown, the tree, if it has been kept to a compact head instead of being permitted to straggle, looks like one huge rose, magnified by some fairy magic, to deck the bosom of some fair giantess. The various kinds of Plum follow, the blossoms of which are snow-white, and as full and clustering as those of the almond. The Peach and Nectarine, which are now full blown, are unlike either of the above; and their sweet effect, as if growing out of the hard bare wall, or the rough wooden paling, is peculiarly pretty. They are of a deep blush colour, and of a delicate bell shape, the lips, however, divided, and turning backward, to expose the interior to the cherishing sun.

But perhaps the bloom that is richest and mostpromisingin its general appearance is that of the Cherry, clasping its white honours all round the long straight branches, from heel to point, and not letting a leaf or a bit of stem be seen, except the three or four leaves that come as a green finish at the extremity of each branch.

The other blossoms, of the Pears, and (loveliest of all) the Apples, do not come in perfection till next month.

In thinking of the circumstances which happen this month in connexion with the animal world, I scarcely know where to begin my observations, so numerous are the subjects, and so limited the space they must be despatched in. The Birds must have precedence, for they are now, for once in their lives, as busy as the bees are always. They are getting their houses built, and seeing to their household affairs, and concluding their family arrangements, that when the summer and the sunshine are fairly come, they may have nothing to do but teach their children the last new modes of flying and singing, and be as happy as—birds, for the rest of the year. Now, therefore, as in the last month, they have but little time to sing to each other; and the Lark has the morning sky all to himself. Not but we have other April melodies, and one or two theprémicesof which belong so peculiarly to this month, that we must listen to them for a moment, whatever else is awaiting us. And first let us hearken to the Cuckoo, shooting out its soft and mellow, yet powerful voice, till it seems to fill the wholeconcave of the heavens with its two mysterious notes, the most primitive of musical melodies. Who can listen to those notes for the first time in Spring, and not feel his school days come back to him? And not as he did then

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