186 JULY. 



the large blue geranium embellishes the summer 

 wayside; to heaths with their warm elastic 

 sward and crimson bells — the chithering of 

 grasshoppers, — the foxglove, and the old gnarl- 

 ed oak ; in short, to all the solitary haunts after 

 which the city-pent lover of nature pants " as 

 the hart panteth after the water brooks." What 

 is there so truly English? What is so truly 

 linked with our rural tastes, our sweetest me- 

 mories, and our sweetest poetry, as stiles and 

 foot-paths? Goldsmith, Thomson, and Milton 

 have adorned them with some of their richest 

 wreaths. They have consecrated them to poe- 

 try and love. It is along the foot-path in se- 

 cluded fields, upon the stile in the embowered 

 lane, where the wild rose and the honey-suckle 

 are lavishing their beauty and their fragrance, 

 that we delight to picture to ourselves rural 

 lovers, breathing, in the dewy sweetness of sum- 

 mer evening, vows still sweeter. There it is 

 that the poet seated, sends back his soul into 

 the freshness of his youth, amongst attachments 

 since withered by neglect, — rendered painful by 

 absence, or broken by death ; amongst dreams 

 and aspirations which, even now that they pro- 

 nounce their own fallacy, are lovely. It is 

 there that he gazes upon the gorgeous sunset — 

 the evening star following with its silvery lamp, 

 the fading day, or the moon showering her pale 



