SCENERY. 



9 



with natural science, it may be vaunted as 

 demanding a knowledge of the habits of a 

 considerable tribe of created beings — fishes, 

 and the animals that they prey upon, and an 

 acquaintance with the signs and tokens of 

 the weather and its changes, the nature of 

 waters, and of the atmosphere. As to its 

 poetical relations, it carries us into the most 

 wild and beautiful scenery of nature ; amongst 

 the mountain lakes, and the clear and lovely 

 streams that gush from the higher ranges of 

 elevated hills, or that make their way through 

 the cavities of calcareous strata. How de- 

 lightful in the early spring, after the dull 

 and tedious time of winter, when the frosts 

 disappear and the sunshine warms the earth 

 and waters, to wander forth by some clear 

 stream, to see the leaf bursting from the pur- 

 ple bud, to scent the odours of the bank per- 

 fumed by the violet, and enamelled, as it were, 

 with the primrose and the daisy ; to wander 

 upon the fresh turf below the shade, of trees, 

 whose bright blossoms are filled with the 

 music of the bee ; and on the surface of the 

 waters to view the gaudy flies sparkling like 



