276 AUGUST. 



can bear any comparison with it. At its rising 

 it has a character so peculiarly its own that the 

 more a person is accustomed to expect and 

 to observe it, the more it strikes him with 

 astonishment. I would advise every one who 

 can go out in the country, to make a practice 

 of watching for its rising. The warmth and 

 the dryness of the earth, the clearness and 

 balmy serenity of the atmosphere at that 

 season, the sounds of voices borne from distant 

 fields, the freshness which comes with the 

 evening, combine to make the twilight walk 

 delicious j and scarcely has the sun departed in 

 the west, when the moon in the east rises from 

 beyond some solitary hill, or from behind the 

 dark rich foliage of trees, and sails up into the 

 still and transparent air in the full magnificence 

 of a world. It comes not as in common, a fair 

 but flat disc on the face of the sky, we behold 

 it suspended in the crystal air in its greatness 

 and rotundity ; we perceive the distance beyond 

 it as sensibly as that before it ; and its apparent 

 size is magnificent. In a short time, however, it 

 has acquired a considerable altitude its appa- 

 rent bulk has diminished its majestic grandeur 

 has waned, and it sails on its way calmly beau- 



