20 AUTUMNAL LEAVES. 



vigorous flowers which, coming with the early 

 summer, attain their full splendour in July and 

 August, and linger on into the first few days of 

 September; but the veritable blossoms of Autumn 

 which come with the season and remain open 

 until cut down by the early frosts of winter. 

 Yet these, beautiful as they are and conspicuous, 

 in places, by their abundant presence, appear to 

 be obliterated by the more pervading hues of 

 autumnal leafage. 



Content, so to speak, to suffer by comparison, 

 during the summer whilst they are dressed in 

 their garb of sober green with the flowers which 

 they bear and serve by contrast to bring into 

 relief, the leaves, in the later season, change 

 colour, and when their early ornaments are faded 

 and gone, blossom, themselves, into tints of mellow 

 beauty, and oftentimes into hues of splendour 

 which enrich the landscape as far as the eye can 

 see. 



Pencil and pallet have been industriously em- 

 ployed, since landscape art first commenced to 

 copy Nature, in the work of delineating on paper 

 and canvas the especial, prominent, or typical 



