THE return of Spring, with its "glad light green," is to most of us a renewal of our youth. The sunshine has a warm, golden look, and appears to cling to the brown earth, trees, and fences. It is happiness to feel its genial influence. We contrast it with

"The winter's drenching rain

And driving snow," (BEATTIE,)

and look forward to the deep and glowing beauty, "the lusty bravery of summer, and to autumn, with its russet stubble fields, transparent air and water, and gay shifting clouds. Nature is ever young, and it is no wonder that the "way of life" of her ardent and sincere admirers never falls "into the sere and yellow leaf." Recollections of our own youth are mingled with walks by the brook side, rambles through meadows and woods; with cool gushing springs, at which we have often knelt and slaked our thirst, and made cups of walnut leaves fastened together by their stems, which proved to be convenient and elegant. The harvest field also has afforded us many hours of heart-felt delight. Raking hay is a great sharpener of the appetite, and what meal can be more de

licious than the one eaten under

farm house. Huge bowls of rich samp and milk are rapidly consumed and as rapidly replenished; and how soothing to weary limbs, to repose upon the fresh smelling bed in the large open garret, where we often heard the big drops pattering on the roof, or pouring down in torrents.

"O Lord! this is an hugè rain! This were a weather for to sleepin in." CHAUCER.

The quiet of the country undoubtedly deepens the religion of a thoughtful mind, for the current of life there glides along more calmly than in the city, where but little time is left for reflection. A stillness broods over the heart, and over the landscape, on a Sabbath morning. The Sunday last past made a most agreeable impression on us. Rain had fallen during the previous night, but the sun rose bright and clear on Sunday, and every tree, bush and blade of grass glittered in its rays.

"A fresher green the smelling leaves displayed." PARNELL.

The air was musical with birds; cows were cropping the short, rich herbage beneath some magnificent elm trees on the common opposite the window where we were sit

rich clad ?"

LAMB.

sky." Soon, the church bell rang its peals, summoning the poor and the rich to God's house, some to return thanks for past blessings, and others to implore for strength to bear up under sorrows and afflictions, and fervently to exclaim, "Thy will be done." Oh, it was a cheering and lovely sight to view the old and the young, fathers, mothers, the young maiden with dancing ring

"How still the morning of the hallow'd day!
Mute is the voice of rural labor, hushed
The ploughboy's whistle and the milkmaid's
song.

The scythe lies glittering in the dewy wreath
Of tedded grass, mingled with fading flowers
That yester morn bloomed waving in the breeze.
Sounds the most faint attract the ear-the hum
Of early bee, the trickling of the dew,
The distant bleating, midway up the hill.
Calmness sits throned on yon unmoving cloud.
To him who wanders o'er the upland leas
The blackbird's note comes mellowing from the

dale;

Her deadliest foe. The toil-worn horse, set free,

Unheedful of the pasture, roams at large;
And as his stiff unwieldy bulk he rolls,
His iron-armed hoofs gleam in the morning
ray."

Miller's "A Day in the Woods," dedicated to the Countess of Blessington, is a beautifully printed book, and contains a ber of young persons wandering about in series of tales and poems, told by a numthe woods, "with ample interchange of sweet discourse." It smells of green leaves and flowery dells, and you hear the murmuring of brooks. It is full of eloquence and picturesque beauty. He minutely and fondly dwells on old customs and habits, and is so thoroughly acquainted with all the subjects that he writes upon, that it stamps the work with a peculiar value. None but a true poet could have written it.

We will make a few selections, that the reader may judge for himself of the exquisite poetical material of Miller's mind.

"See how beautiful the sunshine sleeps on the opening flowers, and those that blow upon the shady banks stand amid light of their own creating. Here comes a heavy bee; he belongs to no hive, but is a free denizen of the hills and woods, and stores his sweets in the bole of some mighty tree, where he can securely feed upon his treasures in the winter, safe from the howling tempest. How gayly he flies along to the deep low music of his own wings! Now he has plunged into that bluebell's cup, head foremost, like a diver who dashes at once to the river depths; so he has plunged through the loosened lustre of the petals, the clear cool crystal of the folded dewdrop, and is now revelling at the fountain of the flower's sweetness. Happy bee! the range of the sunny hills is all thine own; thou canst sail down the fragrant valleys, or carry thy merry minstrelsy through the leafy forestbowers, then dash away in sunshine and song to the breezy banks of the far-off murmuring river."

"Observe that tall young woman, whose pale face is saddened by sorrow. Solitary and

superior to what are generally procured in the city. But above all, there is generally a home feeling among country people, which carries with it many virtues. In cities there is scarcely such a place as home. We merely stay in such a street at such a number, and without the number we could with difficulty find our residences --for entire blocks of houses are often precisely similar in all respects. About the old homestead we love the very grass, and trees, and winding roads, the birds singing over our heads, the flowers blooming about us; and the atmosphere seems to bear joy and health with it. We think that friendships are more apt to strike root and endure in the country, than in the city. For the most part, in cities, what is society so called, but a wearisome round of common places, stereotyped remarks, which give no insight into the character of the individual you are conversing with? and the same style of dress and mode of living and education form classes of which each individual constitutes a fragment, separate, but not distinct. In the country the young pass much time with one another, under the same roof; they are more thrown upon their own resources; they become intimate from the very fact of being acquainted with each other's character, disposition, trains of thought. Public opinion is but little felt, or little heeded, for they scarcely know its influence. There you find much originality, both in thought and observation, with a depth of sincerity, genuine, and fresh from the heart.

The recollections of May-poles on the banks of the silver Trent, of sheep-shearing, and harvest home festivals

"The promise of the spring, The summer's glory and the rich repose Of autumn, and the winter's silvery snow," (ROGERS' HUMAN LIFE,)

have cheered many an hour of Miller's existence in the dark and unwholesome streets of London. He forgets not in his exile in the city, the country walks in frosty weather, the glow it gave to the blood, the deep blue sky, looking far higher than in summer-the hoar frost on the trees and hedges the freezing showers glazing everything on which they fell; he sees the hard brown buds, but thinks of the tender leaves and rich colors folded beneath their

hard sheaths; and the brave little robin, "sacred to the household gods," recalls to mind pleasurable thoughts of childhood, of "The Children in the Wood." And when summer comes, in imagination, he gazes on the sky-lark floating heavenward, and hears the blackbird's mellow voice, and loves the rolling river, the flowers, and grass, and hills and woods, and the village green with its oak, or sycamore, or elm, in the centre, and the old men sitting beneath it when their day's work is done, smoking their pipes, and talking about the weather, the appearance of the crops, the health and prosperity or adversity of their neighbors, while the children are rolling about on the grass. To him the summer's heat is mitigated and sweetened by the fragrant breath of the hay field, and he feels the coolness of the old woods, and sees the cattle standing knee-deep in the running streams. Miller is truly

A novel with the title of "Gideon Giles, the Roper," appeared in London in 1841, with thirty-six illustrations by Edward Lambert. In this production Miller attempted to produce a true English work, to make the scenery and characters thoroughly English. The chief events of the story are such as had fallen under his own observation, and he wished to express his indignation against an unjust and cruel English law. The story turns upon the fact that a poor man can sell the goods he himself makes, in the town or parish in which he lives, without a license; but let him offer the same goods for sale in the neighboring villages, or at the doors of lonely and out of the way houses, where the inhabitants would be compelled to go miles to purchase such articles as he brings to their doors, and he is liable to a penalty of £40 or three months' imprisonment.

The character of Ben Brust is capitally drawn, and excellently well supported throughout the work. He is described as a man of "remarkable exterior," large and fat, with a countenance that seemed as if it had never known care; there was a kind of "come day go day" appearance about him; he looked, to use a homely phrase,

"a jolly-hearted fellow,"-and such a man in reality was Ben Brust, one who never troubled his head with what his neighbors thought about him, who never worked until he was fairly forced, or thought of obtaining new clothes until the old ones had all but dropped from his back. He looked too fat to think; he was too weighty a man for care to bend down; waking thought" seldom sat on Ben's eyelids, for he had been heard to say that he never remembered being in bed five minutes without falling asleep; he was a philosopher in his way. If he was hungry he could make a meal in a turnip field; a bean stack was to Ben a banquet; had you named poverty to him he would have stared, and said, he knew no farmer of that name. Still, he loved a good dinner. A comfortable man was Ben Brust. Ben was married his wife was a thin, spare, cross-grained little woman, with a sharp vinegar aspect, so thin that she was nick named " Famine," while Ben was called "Plenty;" he would have bumped down three wives the size of his own, in any fair scale in England. Famine went out to work, while Plenty lay sleeping in the sunshine; she was scratching and saving, washed and cleaned for people in the village. Plenty sat on gates and stiles whistling, or sometimes, standing on the bridge, would spit in the water and watch it float away; and when the day was not very hot indeed, go on the other side to see it come through. "Oh, he is a lazy goodfor-nowt," his wife would exclaim, "but I never let him finger a farthing of my gettings; I keep my own cupboard under lock and key, and never trouble him for a bite or a sup, year in and year out; all I desire him to do is to keep himself." Ben, on the other hand, used to say, "A man's a fool that kills himself to keep himself. When a rich man dies he cannot take his wealth with him, and I've heard the parson advise folks to take no thought for the morrow; besides, it was a saying before I was born that there is but a groat a year between work and play, and they say that play gets it; all the comforts of life consist in snoring and brusting,' for such were the elegant terms he chose for sleep and food; as to clothes, a flower and a butterfly are finer than anybody in the land." Ben often wondered, too, “why a

quart jug was no bigger." Nevertheless, Ben, with all his idleness and love of ale and meat, is a sturdy and fine specimen of a man. "He deals in russet yeas and honest kersey noes," and is ever ready to aid his fellow creatures, and has withal a heartiness and simplicity of character that interest the reader extremely in his fortunes. He can work zealously enough when it is for the benefit of another, in spite of his fondness for a quiet sleep on the soft grass under shady trees, places where he would throw himself down and think how foolish it was for the birds to take the trouble to fly about in the hot sunshine. We read the work to a couple of mechanics in their workshops. At first it hindered their work but slightly, but in the course of half an hour all work had ceased; the hammer and jack plane were quiet side by side. Their day's work was spoiled. We read till late in the evening, and early next morning were called upon to finish it; and so anxious were they to hear the conclusion that they could not go to work. They saw unerringly, how lifelike the characters were, and the cares and misfortunes and sterling qualities of Gideon Giles, found a way to their hearts and elicited deep sympathy. It is a noble book, written by a noble man, the owner of "no faint and milky heart." All the characters appear to have been drawn from individuals falling under Miller's own observation, and bits of scenery are described exquisitely, bringing the very places before our eyes.

Pictures of Country Life, and Summer Rambles in Green and Shady Places, with thirty illustrations by Samuel Williams, London, Bogue, 1847, in all respects sustains Miller's previous reputation. The volume contains fifteen essays on various and delightful topics, among others one on Bloomfield's Farmer Boy, a glorious piece of criticism. We have room but for one extract: