&32 DECEMBER. 



We are now placed in the midst of such wintry 

 scenes as this. Nature is stripped of all her sum- 

 mer drapery. Her verdure, her foliage, her flowers 

 have all vanished. The sky is filled with clouds and 

 gloom, or sparkles only with frosty radiance. The 

 earth is spongy with wet, rigid with frost, or buried 

 in snows. The winds that in summer breathed 

 gently over nodding blooms and undulating grass, 

 swaying the leafy boughs with a pleasant murmur, 

 and wafting perfumes all over the world, now hiss 

 like serpents, or howl like wild beasts of the desert ; 

 cold, piercing and cruel. Every thing has drawn as 

 near as possible to the centre of warmth and com- 

 fort. The farmer has driven his flocks and cattle 

 into sheltered home inclosures, where they may 

 receive from his provident care that food which the 

 earth now denies them ; or into the farmyard itself, 

 where some honest Giles piles their cratches plenti- 

 fully with fodder. The labourer has fled from the 

 field to the barn, and the measured strokes of 

 his flail are heard daily from morn till eve. It 

 amazes us, as we walk abroad, to conceive where 

 can have concealed themselves the infinite variety 

 of creatures that sported through the air, earth, and 

 waters of summer. Birds, insects, and reptiles, 

 whither are they all gone ? The birds that filled 

 the air with their music, the rich blackbird, the 

 loud and cheerful thrush, the linnet, lark, and gold- 

 finch, whither have they crept ? The squirrel that 

 played his antics on the forest-tree, and all the 

 showy and varied tribes of butterflies, moths, dra- 



