Arboribus; crefcunt ipfæ, fætuque gravantur:
Hinc alitur porro nöftrum genus atque ferarum :
Hinc lætas urbeis pueris florere videmus,
Frundiferafque novis avibus canere undique fylvas.
Hinc feffæ pecudes pingues per pabula læta
Corpora deponunt, & candens lacteus humor
Uberibus manat diftentis; hinc nova proles
Artubus infirmis teneras lafciva per herbas
Ludit, lacte mero menteis percuffa novellas.

Lib. I. 251, &c.

The rains are loft, when Jove descends in showers Soft on the bofom of the parent earth:

But fprings the fhining grain; their verdant robe
The trees refume; they grow, and pregnant bend
Beneath their fertile load: hence kindly food
The living tribes receive; the cheerful town
Beholds its joyous bands of flowering youth;
With new-born fongs the leafy groyes refound;
The full-fed flocks amid the laughing meads
Their weary bodies lay, while wide-diftent
The plenteous udder teems with milky juice;
And o'er the grafs, as their young hearts beat high,
Swell'd by the pure.and generous ftreams they drain,
Frolic the wanton lambs with joints infirm.

THE

THE period of SUMMER is marked by fewer and less striking changes in the face of Nature. A soft and pleafing languor, interrupted only by the gradual progreffion of the vegetable and animal tribes towards their state of maturity, forms the leading character of this Season. The active fermentation of the juices, which the first access of genial warmth had excited, now fubfides; and the increasing heats rather infpire faintnefs and inaction than lively exertions. The infect race alone feem' animated with peculiar vigour under the more direct influence of the fun; and are therefore with equal truth and advantage introduced by the Poet to enliven the filent and drooping fcenes prefented by the other forms of animal nature. As this fource, however, together with whatever elfe our fummers afford, is infufficient to furnish novelty and business enough for this act of the drama of the year, the Poet judiciously opens a new field, profufely fertile in objects fuited to the glowing colours of defcriph 3

tive

tive poetry. By an easy and natural transition, he quits the chastized fummer of our temperate clime for those regions where a perpetual fummer reigns, exalted by fuch fuperior degrees of folar heat as give an entirely new face to almost every part of nature. The terrific grandeur prevalent in fome of thefe, the exquifite richness and beauty in others, and the novelty in all, afford fuch a happy variety for the poet's selection, that we need not wonder if fome of his noblest pieces are the product of this delightful excurfion. He returns, however, with apparent fatisfaction to take a laft furvey of the fofter fummer of our ifland; and after clofing the profpect of terreftrial beauties, artfully fhifts the scene to celestial fplendors, which, though perhaps not more ftriking in this feafon than in fome of the others, are now alone agreeable objects of contemplation in a northern climate.

AUTUMN is too eventful a period in the his,

tory

year

tory of the within the temperate parts of the globe, to require foreign aid for rendering it more varied and interefting. The promise of the Spring is now fulfilled. The filent and gradual process of maturation is completed; and Human Industry beholds with triumph the rich products of its toil. The vegetable tribes difclose their infinitely various forms of fruit; which term, while, with refpect to common ufe it is. confined to a few peculiar modes of fructification, in the more comprehensive language of the Naturalift includes every product of vegetation by which the rudiments of a future progeny are developed, and feparated from the parent plant. These are in part collected and stored up by those animals for whofe fuftenance during the enfuing fleep of nature they are provided. The reft, furnished with various contrivances for difsemination, are scattered, by the friendly winds which now begin to blow, over the furface of that earth which they are to clothe and decorate,

Thus

The young of the animal race, which Spring and Summer had brought forth and cherished, having now acquired fufficient vigour, quit their concealments, and offer themselves to the purfuit of the carnivorous among their fellow-animals, and of the great deftroyer man. the scenery is enlivened with the various sports of the hunter; which, however repugnant they may appear to that fyftem of general benevolence and fympathy which philofophy would inculcate, have ever afforded a most agreeable exertion to the human powers, and have much to plead in their favour as a neceffary part of the great plan of Nature. Indeed, the marks her intention with fufficient precifion, by refusing to grant any longer thofe friendly fhades which had grown for the protection of the infant offspring. The grove lofes its honours; but before they are entirely tarnished, an adventitious beauty, arifing from that gradual decay which loofens the withering leaf, gilds the autumnal landskip with

a tem