1827.] Dozing. 15 



But leaving all thoughts of disappointment, who will not allow that there 

 is something exceedingly delightful in dozing calmly beneath the shade of 

 an o'erarching tree ? 



" recubans sub tegmine fagi." 



Of course, the weather should be fine, to admit of this luxurious idleness. 

 Let the blue-bosomed clouds be sailing along, like Peter Bell's boat ; let 

 the sunbeams be gilding the face of nature, and tinging the landscape with 

 multiform hues ; let the breezes be gentle, the spot retired, and the heart 

 at ease. Now, go and stretch yourself on the grassy couch, while the 

 branches of an aged tree shadow forth the imaged leaves around you. What 

 a congenial situation for philosophy under an old tree, on a sunny summer- 

 day ! How much more becoming than the immortal tub of the sour- 

 minded Diogenes ? Who will be able to refrain from philosophizing^ 

 I repeat it, (beneath such an old tree ? 'Tis at such times that the heart 

 spontaneously unbends itself that the fancy tranquillizes its thoughts 

 and that memory awakens her 



" treasured pictures of a thousand scenes." 



Place the palms of your hands beneath your pole, and survey the skies ! 

 calm, beautifully unconscious ! Bye gone times, and bye-gone friends 

 the thousand commingling scenes of varied life how they all recur to 

 you now ! You fancy you could lie beneath the tree for eternity so 

 soothing is the employment of doing nothing or field philosophy ! Yet, 

 to speak correctly, you are doing a great deal ; your imagination is flying 

 in all directions from the death of Caesar to the last cup of congou that you 

 took with a regretted friend. What a mystery your existence is ! The 

 world turns round as gently as ever; the flowers bud into life; and the 

 winter nips them. Man lives, thinks, and dies. All very wonderous 

 truisms. Well, after a half-hour or perchance more you will be gra^ 

 dually relapsing into a state of soporific nothing-at-all-ness (the best word 

 I can find to express my meaning). May there be some clear little stream 

 just behind you, laughing along its idle way ! some chirping birds, sing- 

 ing their roundelay some buzzing flies you will then be lulled into 

 doziness. However, with or without the purling murmur of the brook 

 the joyous warbling of the birds the busy bustling flies you will not 

 be able to resist the dozing temptations that will steal over you. Your 

 eyes will close gently as flower-leaflets your thoughts die away in 

 a heavenly confusion and then you doze ! neither sleeping nor waking, 

 but absolved in delicious dreaminess ! O for such a doze ! 

 Miss Venus was partial to a doze under a tree. Ecce : 



Densaque sideros per gramina fuderat artus, 

 Acclinis florum cumulo: crispatur opaca 

 Pampinus, et mites undatim ventilat uvas. 

 Ora decet neglecta SOPOR. 



Nexa subingenti requiescit Gratia quercu." .CLAUDIAN. 



There are certain families in the world that exhibit peculiar traits cha- 

 racteristic of the stock. Some are renowned for pug-noses : from the 



