ledged, and is likewise enhanced by every pleasing association.

Autumn, which is metaphorically applied to the decline of human life, when "fallen into the sere, the yellow leaf," and not the spring, la primavera, gioventù del anno, is generally called the painter's season. And yet there is something so very delightful in the real charms of spring, as well as in the associated ideas of renewed life and vegetation, that it seems a perversion of our natural feelings, when we prefer to all its blooming hopes, the first bodings of the approach of winter. Autumn must therefore have many powerful attractions though of a different kind, and those intimately connected with the art of painting: for which reason as the picturesque, though equally founded in nature with the beautiful, has been more particularly pointed out, illustrated, and, as it were, brought to light by that art, an inquiry into the reasons why autumn, and not spring, is called the painter's season, will, I imagine, give great additional in

!

sight into the distinct characters of the picturesque and the beautiful, especially with regard to colour.

The colours of spring deserve the name of beauty in the truest sense of the word: they have every thing that can give us that idea; freshness, gaiety, and liveliness, with softness and delicacy: their beauty is indeed of all others the most generally acknowledged; so much so, that from them every comparison and illustration of that character is taken. The tints of the flowers and blossoms, in all the nearer views, are clearly the most striking and attractive; but the more general impression is made by the freshness of that vivid green, with which the fields, the woods, and all vegetation begins to be adorned. Besides their freshness, the earlier trees have a remarkable lightness and transparency: their new foliage serves as a decoration, not as a concealment; and through it the forms of their limbs are seen, as those of the human body under a thin

drapery; while a thousand quivering lights play around and amidst their branches in every direction.

But these beauties, which give to spring it's peculiar character, are not those which are best adapted to painting: a general air of lightness is one of the most engaging qualities of that lovely season; yet the lightness, in the earlier part, approaches to thinness; and the transparency of the new foliage, the thousand quivering lights, beautiful as they are in nature, have a tendency to produce a meagre and spotty effect in a picture, where breadth, and broad masses can hardly be dispensed with. The general colour also of spring, when April

Lightly o'er the living scene

Scatters his tenderest freshest green,

though pleasing to every eye in nature is not equally so on the canvas; espec when scattered over the general scene. Freshness also, it may be remarked, is in

one sense simply coolness, and that idea, in some degree, almost always accompanies it; and though in nature gleams of sunshine, from their real warmth as well as their splendour, give a temporary glow and animation to a landscape entirely green, yet even under the influence of such a glow, that colour would too much preponderate in a picture. Such a style of landscape is therefore rarely attempted; for who would confine himself to cold monotony, when all nature is full of examples of the greatest variety, with the most perfect harmony?

As the green of spring, from its comparative coldness, is upon the whole unfavourable to landscape painting, in like manner its flowers and blossoms, from their too distinct and splendid appearance, are apt to produce a glare and spottiness so destructive of that union, which is the very essence of a picture whether in nature or imitation*.

* White blossoms are in one very material respect, more unfavourable to landscape than any others; as white,

This effect I remember observing in a very striking degree many years ago, on entering Herefordshire when the fruit trees were in blossom: my expectation was much raised, for I had heard that at the time of the blow, the whole country from the Malvern hills looked like a garden. My disappointment was nearly equal to my expectation; the country answered to the description; it did look like a garden, but it made a scattered discordant landscape: the blossoms, so beautiful on a near view, when the different shades and gradations of their colours are distinguished, seemed to have lost all their richness and variety;

by bringing objects too near the eye, disturbs the aerial perspective and the gradation of distance. On this subject I must beg leave to refer the reader to some remarks by Mr. Lock, in Mr. Gilpin's Tour down the Wye, page 97, which I should have inserted here, were not the book in every person's hands.

It is impossible to read these remarks, without regretting that the observations of a mind so capable of enlightening the public, should be withheld from it; a regret which those who have enjoyed the pleasure and advantage of Mr. Lock's conversation, feel in a much higher degree.