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sumjmer pictures. 



" The mountains high, and how they stand ! 

 The valleys, and the great mainland ! 

 The trees, the herbs, the towers strong, 

 The castles, and the rivers long. 

 ***** 



On hills then show the ewe and lamb, 

 And every young one with his dam ; 

 Then lovers walk, and tell their tale, 

 Both of their bliss and of their bale ; 

 Then everything doth pleasure find, 

 In that that comforts all their kind." 



Eakl Sueret. 



Each season has its own pictures, and each picture its own peculiar 

 feature. In nature nothing is repeated, though the whole economy 

 of nature is endless repetition. Though you have travelled all over 

 the round world, and witnessed scenes innumerahle, and the produc- 

 tions of nature under every variety of aspect, you shall never see the 

 same picture twice. The summer-scenes of England are peculiarly 

 beautiful, and there is no spot in the world which can equal the 

 domestic rusticity and rich verdant beauty of English summer 

 scenery, although I am an Englishman and say so. Italy, the garden 

 of the world, is parched up as brown as an old hat, at the season of 

 Midsummer. The plains of Judea, and the valleys of Jordan, though 

 extolled by travellers, are, nevertheless, during the most charming 

 portion of the year, nothing more than wide carpets of a dull melan- 

 choly green, for the shapeless olive-bushes, which grow so numerously 

 in those districts, wear, when in their most luxuriant condition, 

 nothing but a mass of dull dingy leaves, destitute altogether of either 

 grace or verdant beauty. We shall therefore turn with some gra- 

 tulation to glance on a few pictures from our own fields, drawn, 

 it is true, with a very weak pen, but still copied from nature, and if 

 not truly in the letter, at least in the spirit by which they were 

 prompted, — genuine transcripts of the real thousand brambles, and 

 rose-blooms, and fruitful fields, for which our beloved country is so 

 justly celebrated. 



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