MARCH. 77 



All unexpectedly, too, in some embowered lane, you 

 are arrested by the delicious odour of violets, those 

 sweetest of Flora's children, which have furnished 

 so many pretty allusions to the poets, and which are 

 not yet exhausted : they are like true friends, we do 

 not know half their sweetness till they have felt the 

 sunshine of our kindness : and again, they are like 

 the pleasures of our childhood, the earliest and the 

 most beautiful. Now, however, they are to be seen 

 in all their glory blue and white modestly peering 

 through their thick, clustering leaves. The lark is 

 carolling in the blue fields of air ; the wood-lark 

 sings rejoicingly ; the blackbird and thrush are 

 again shouting and replying to each other, from the 

 tops of the highest trees. As you pass the cottages, 

 they have caught the happy infection : there are 

 windows thrown open, and doors standing ajar. 

 The inhabitants are in their gardens, some clearing 

 away rubbish, some turning up the light and fresh- 

 smelling soil amongst the tufts of snowdrops and 

 rows of bright yellow crocuses, which every where 

 abound ; and the children, ten to one, are peeping 

 into the first birds' nest of the season the hedge- 

 sparrow's with its four sea-green eggs, snugly but 

 unwisely built in the pile of old pea-rods. 



In the fields labourers are plashing and trimming 

 the hedges, and in all directions are teams at plough. 

 You smell the wholesome, and, I may truly say, 

 aromatic soil, as it is turned up to the sun, brown 

 and rich, the whole country over. It is delightful, 

 as you pass along deep hollow lanes, or are hidden 

 7* 



