APRIL. 



THE month of April is proverbial for its 

 fickleness ; for its intermingling showers, and 

 flitting gleams of sunshine; for all species of 

 weather in one day ; for a wild mixture of clear 

 and cloudy skies, greenness and nakedness, 

 flying hail and abounding blossoms. But to 

 the lover of Nature, it is not the less charac- 

 terized by the spirit of expectation with which 

 it imbues the mind. We are irresistibly led 

 to look forward, to anticipate, with a delightful 

 enthusiasm, the progress of the season. It is 

 one of the excellent laws of Providence, that 

 our minds shall be insensibly moulded to a 

 sympathy with that season which is passing, 

 and become deprived, in a certain degree, of 

 the power of recalling the images of those 

 which are gone by ; whence we reap the double 

 advantage of not being disgusted with the 

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