AUGUST. 213 



do less than the best of them: — the bloominc 



damsel is there, adding her sunny beauty to 

 that of universal nature ; the boy cuts down the 

 stalks which overtop his head ; children glean 

 amongst the shocks; and even the unwalkable 

 infant, sits propt with sheaves, and plays with 

 the stubble, and 



With all its twined flowers. 



Such groups are often seen in the wheat-held as 

 deserve the immortality of the pencil. There 

 is something too about wheat-harvest which 

 carries back the mind and feasts it with the 

 pleasures of antiquity. The sickle is almost 

 the only implement which has descended from 

 the olden times in its pristine simplicity — to 

 the present hour neither altering its form, nor 

 becoming obsolete amid all the fashions and 

 improvements of the world. It is the same 

 now as it was in those scenes of rural beauty 

 which the scripture history, without any la- 

 boured description, often by a single stroke, 

 presents so livingly to the imagination ; as it 

 was when tender thoughts passed 



Through the sad heart of Ruth, when sick for home, 

 She stood in tears amid the alien corn ; 



when the mhistrel-king wandered through the 

 solitudes of Paran, or fields reposing at the feet 

 of Carmel ; or " as it fell on a day, that the 



