THE SEASONS. 97 



CHAPTER VIII. 



The Seasons. 



" For this the golden sun the earth divides, 

 And, wheel'd through twelve bright signs, his chariot guides, 

 Five zones the heaven surround; the centre glows 

 With fire unquench'd and suns without repose: 

 At each extreme, the poles in tempest tost, 

 Dark with thick showers and unremitting frost: 

 Between the poles and blazing zone confined, 

 Lie climes to feeble man by Heaven assigned. 

 'Mid these the signs their course obliquely run, 

 And star the figured belt that binds the sun." m 



Sotheby's Virgil. 



WE have, at length, arrived at that part of our work, which will 

 treat upon and explain the phenomena of the seasons. All that 

 we have said in the preceding chapters, has been preparatory to 

 this, and, we trust, that there will not be less of beauty, or poetry, 

 in our contemplations of those great changes which mark the 

 rolling year, because we can understand the causes which produce 

 them. To our own mind, there is no subject more delightful 

 than this, of the changing year ; a theme, which is perhaps, still 

 more endeared to us by the beautiful poetry of a Thompson, a 

 Bloomfield, and a Cowper. A theme, which, even to Chaucer, 

 and Spenser, and Shakspeare, and Milton, was a passion. 



After the somewhat tedious detail and explanation, which has 

 preceded", we feel, on approaching this always interesting subject, 

 as Milton expresses it, 



" As one who long in populous cities pent, 

 Where houses thick and sewers annoy the air, 

 Forth issuing on a summer morn, to breathe 

 Among the pleasant villages and farms." 



To behold Nature a? she is, and see the glorious changes which 

 she wears, from the unsullied mantle of winter to the russet garb 

 pf autumn, we must quit the busy haunts of men, and leaving the 



