60 



FEBRUARY. 



haze hover over the whole dispiriting scene. In 

 the country, the prospect is not much better: the 

 roads are full of mire. In the woods and copses 

 you hear a continual dripping and pattering of wet; 

 while the fieldfares, instead of flying across the 

 country with a pleasant chattering, sit solitarily 

 amongst the comfortless trees, uttering their plain- 

 tive cry of 4< cock-shute, cock-shute ;" and the 

 very rooks peer about after worms in the fields 

 with a drooping air. Instead of the enchantments 

 of hoar frost, you have naked hedges, sallow and 

 decaying weeds beneath them, brown and wet pas- 

 tures, and sheets of ice, but recently affording so 

 much fine exercise to skaters and sliders, half sub- 

 mersed in water, full of great cracks, scattered with 

 straws and dirty patches, and stones half liberated 

 by the thaw : such are the miserable features of 

 the time. 



Let us felicitate ourselves that such joyless period 

 is seldom of long duration. The winds of March 

 speedily come piping their jovial strains, clearing 

 the face of the blessed heavens from their sullen veil 

 of clouds, and sweeping away the superabundant 

 moisture from earth and air. Oh ! blithe and ani- 

 mating is the breath of March ! It is like a cool 

 but spirit-stirring draught of some ancient vintage ; 

 elating but not enervating the heart ; deadening the 

 memory of past evil, and expanding it to the deli- 

 cious hope of future delights. So precious a boon, 

 however, is not exclusively permitted to March: 

 February is often allowed to be a liberal partaker 



