1^4 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



innocent infcriptions traced on the ftones with â 

 bit of charcoal : 



Colin and Colette, this Stb of March, 

 Antoinette dt«^ Sebastian, ibh 6ih of May, 



And I have been infinitely more delighted with 

 fuch infcriptions than with thofe of the Academy 

 of Sciences. When the families which cultivate 

 this enchanted fpot are fcattered about, parents 

 and children, through it's glens, and along it's 

 ridges, while the ear is ftruck with the diftant voice 

 of a country lafs Tinging unperceived, or while the 

 eye is caught by the figure of a lufty young fwain; 

 mounted on an apple-tree, with his balket and 

 ladder, looking this way and that way, and liften- 

 ing to the fong, like another Fertumnus : Where is 

 the park with it's ftatues, it's marbles, and it's 

 bronzes, once to be compared with it ? 



O ye rich ! who wifli to encompafs yourfelves 

 with elyfian fcenery, let your park-walls enclofe 

 villages blefl with rural felicity. What deferted 

 tracks of land, over the whole kingdom, might 

 prefent the fame fpedacle ! I have feen Brittany, 

 and other provinces, covered, as far as the eye 

 could reach, with heath, and where nothing grew 

 but a fpecies of prickly furze, black and yellowifh. 

 Our agricultural companies, which there, to no 



purpofcj 



