STUDY Vi 



105 



I (hall conclude this article with refuting an 

 error alluded to in the preceding Study ; namely, 

 that cold is diminifhed in the North, in propor- 

 tion as the forefts are cut down. As this pofition 

 has been advanced by fome of our mofl celebrated 

 Writers, and afterwards retailed, as the cufloni is, 

 by a multitude of others ; it is of importance to 

 overturn it, as being highly prejudicial to rural 

 economy. I had long adopted it as inconteflably 

 certain, on the faith of Hiftory; but I was at 

 length cured of my miflake, not, however, by 

 books, but by fimple peafants. 



One day in Summer, about two o'clock after 

 noon, being about to crofs the foreft of Ivry, I 

 faw fome fliepherds with their flocks, who kept at 

 a confiderable diftance from it, repofmg under the 

 fliade of fome trees that were fcattered up and 

 down through the country. I afked them why 

 they did not go, with their flocks, to take Iheker 

 in the forefl:, from the heat of the Sun. They told 

 me it was too hot there at that time of the day, 

 and that they never drove their flieep thither, ex- 

 cept in the morning and evening. Being defirous, 

 however, of traverfing, in broad day, the woods 

 in which Henry IV. had hunted, and of arriving 

 betimes at Anet, to take a view of the country- 

 palace of Henry II. and of the tomb of Diana of 

 Poitiers, his miftrefs, I engaged a lad belonging 



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