286 NOVEMBER. 



own. Whatever be the opinion of fickle fashion, 

 it is a book pre-eminently fitted for the No- 

 vember fire-side : unrivalled in graphic touches 

 which bring the character of the season before 

 you, and serve to touch the heart with an un- 

 worldly tenderness, a boon of no little conse- 

 quence in these money-getting and artificial 

 days. We have not the Alpine glooms and 

 lonely majesty of Ossian's hilly land ; but we 

 are now surrounded by precisely the melancholy 

 images in which he delights. We are in a 

 month of darkness, storms, and mists ; of the 

 whirling away of the withered leaves, and the 

 introduction to complete winter. Rain, hail, 

 and wind, chase each other over the fields 

 and amongst the woods in rapid alternations. 

 The flowers are gone ; the long grass stands 

 amongst the woodland thickets withered, bleach- 

 ed, and sere ; the fern is red and shrivelled 

 amongst the green gorse and broom ; the plants, 

 which waved their broad, white umbels to the 

 summer breeze, like skeleton-trophies of death, 

 rattle their dry and hollow kexes to the au- 

 tumnal winds. The brooks are brimful ; the 

 rivers, turbid and covered with masses of foam, 

 hurry on in angry strength, or pour their waters 

 over the champain. Our very gardens are sad, 

 damp, and desolate. Their floral splendours 

 are dead ; naked stems and decaying leaves 



