±2^ STUDIES OF NATURE. 



reft, into which our good King Henry IV. clani- 

 bei^ed up, when he perceived the army of the 

 Duke ot Alayenne filing oif to the bottom of the 

 adjoining valley. 



A city, were it built completely of marble, would 

 have to me a melancholy appearance, unlefs I faw 

 in it trees and verdure * : on the other hand, a 

 landfcape, were it Arcadia, were it along the banks 



* Trees air, from their duration, the real monuments of Na- 

 tions ; and they are, farther,- their calendar, from the different 

 feafons at which they fend forth their leaves, their flowers, and 

 their fruks. Savages have no othei-, and our own peafantry 

 make li'eqtlent ufe of it. I met one day, toward the end of Au- 

 Wmn, a country girl all in tears, looking about for a handker- 

 chief which flie had lofl upon the great road. " Was your hand- 

 '• kerchief very pretty-?" faid I to her. "Sir," replied flie, 

 " it was quite new ; I bought it laft bean-time." It has long 

 been rîiy opinion, that if our hiftorical epochs, fo loudly trum- 

 peted, wei-e dated by tholfe of Nature, nothing more would be 

 wanting to mark their injuftice, and expofe them to ridicule. 

 \Vere we fo read, for example, in our books of Hiftory, that a 

 Prince had caufedpart of his fubieâs to be maiTacred, to render 

 Heaven propitious to him, precifcly at the feafon when his king- 

 dom v/as clothed with the plenty of harveft ; or were we to read 

 the relations of bloady engagements, arjd of the bombardment 

 of cities, dated with- the flowering of the violet, the firfi crtam- 

 cheefe making, the flieep-marking feafon ; Would any other 

 contraft be neceflary to lender the penifal of fuch hiftories de- 

 tefrable } On the other hand, fuch dates would communicate im- 

 mortal graces to the actions of good Princes, and would confound 

 the bleflings which they bellowed, with thofe of Pleaven. 



of 



