SUMMER-DAY PIPEftS. 253 



season, and when even the little plough-boy wipes his face, and 

 only wets his whistle. Wherein lies the music of such times 

 of muteness nature's " piping times of peace ?" Etymology 

 can doubtless tell, and ^tomology may, as we take it, throw 

 some light also on the subject. 



Weh 1 , nothing could be more generally characteristic of 

 ' still life' J than the day and hour, about a year ago, which 

 we would now recall, when, book in hand, we crept from our 

 little sun-baked domicile, and throwing ourselves under the 

 shade of a huge elm-pollard, plunged not, we confess it, into 

 our provided volume, but into a reverie about as drowsy and 

 dreamy as the heated face of Dame Nature. And here we 

 must notice, that while all the other children, animal and 

 vegetable, of our nursing-mother Earth, were taking their 

 noontide slumber on her lap, one portion of her family, that, 

 namely, composed of the insect crew, seemed resolved to keep 

 the world stirring, or at least to make a stir in the world, 

 whose sunny places seemed to be entirely abandoned to their 

 use. These little irnpertinents, the pipers, and eke the dancers 

 of the hour, seemed, in truth,, to have taken complete possession 

 of three elements air, earth, and water together with a large 

 portion of the fourth, diffused through all by the fiery sun ; 

 and, in thus possessing, gave apparent life to the elements 

 themselves, making them reel again with insect 



" Mirth and revelry, 

 Tipsy dance, and jollity." 



VOL. II. Q 



