JULY. 235 



with their warm elastic sward and crimson 

 bells-^-the chithering of grasshoppers, the 

 foxglove, and the old gnarled oak ; in short, to 

 all the solitary haunts after which the city-pent 

 lover of nature pants " as the hart panteth 

 after the water brooks." What is there so 

 truly English ? What is so truly linked with 

 our rural tastes, our sweetest memories, and 

 our sweetest poetry, as stiles and foot paths ? 

 Goldsmith, Thomson, and Milton have adorned 

 them with some of their richest wreaths. 

 They have consecrated them to poetry and 

 love. It is along the foot-path in secluded 

 fields, upon the stile in the embowered lane, 

 where the wild rose and the honey-suckle are 

 lavishing their beauty and their fragrance, that 

 we delight to picture to ourselves rural lovers, 

 breathing, in the dewy sweetness of summer 

 evening, vows still sweeter. There it is that 

 the poet seated, sends back his soul into the 

 freshness of his youth, amongst attachments 

 since withered by neglect, rendered painful 

 by absence, or broken by death ; amongst 

 dreams arid aspirations which, even now that 

 they pronounce their own fallacy, are lovely. 

 It is there that he gazes upon the gorgeous 



