SCENES 



AND 



TALES OF COUNTRY LIFE, 



&c. 



All Nature's works the curious mind employ, 

 Inspire a soothing melancholy joy ; 

 Each rural sight, each sound, each smell, combine ; 

 The tinkling sheep bell, or the breath of kine ; 

 The new-mown hay that scents the swelling breeze, 

 Or cottage-chimney smoking through the trees. 



REV. GILBERT WHITE. 



WE are all of us apt to speak of Nature as dis- 

 tinct from the Great Creator of heaven and earth. 

 Dr. Donne says, "Nature was God's apprentice, 

 to learn in the first seven days, and now is his 

 foreman, and works next under him/' Few will 

 venture to deny this. Every thing we see 

 around us affords proofs of divine workmanship 

 and divine arrangement. " Survey the heavens, 

 the work of His fingers, the moon and the stars 

 which he has ordained ;" consider the boundless 

 extent, the immeasurable height of the vault 

 above us ; see the sun rising in the east, succeeded 

 by the moon in all her pensive beauty look at 



