132 



MAY. 



At which Gilpin would quote, from his <e Fo- 

 rest Scenery," a passage proving the poets to 

 be very foolish for their admiration of so insig- 

 nificant and inelegant a bush. We however, 

 shall take part with Burns, only we would con- 

 jure a nightingale into his hawthorn, and the 

 hawthorn into a forest, for of all May delights, 

 listening to the nightingale is the greatest, and 

 when heard at still midnight, the moon and 

 stars above you, filling with lustre the clear 

 blue sky ; the trees lifting up their young and 

 varied foliage to the silvery light ; the deer qui- 

 etly resting in their thickest shadows, and the 

 night-breeze, ever and anon, wafting through 

 the air " Sabean odours," then if you feel nei- 

 ther love nor poetry, depend upon it, you are 

 neither lover nor poet. As however in this 

 country, nightingales are as capricious as the 

 climate, a good singing gentleman is no bad 

 substitute, as a friend of ours convinced us on 

 such an occasion, making the woods echo with 

 the " Pibroch of Donnel Dhu." 



FLOWERS. The return of May again brings 

 over us a living sense of the loveliness and de- 

 lightfulness of flowers. Of all the minor crea- 



