232 SPRING. 



all that is, and all that occurs, in the earth, the waters, 

 and the air, is a constant creation, a daily, nay, an 

 hourly springing up of new worlds ; and he who lives 

 one spring in the open air, may watch the whole 

 progress of a hundred generations. Nature is then 

 " voice all over," and whether she speaks to one of 

 the senses or to them all, she always speaks instruc- 

 tion. 



The buds, the blossoms, and the birds are, however, 

 the charms of the spring ; and can then be studied 

 with feelings of greater satisfaction than at any other 

 time, as the beam and the breeze bring every day an 

 accession of life to that which is vegetable, and an ad- 

 dition of food to that which is animal. There is, there- 

 fore, no straining of poetry, when the epithet, " per- 

 petual spring," is bestowed upon a region which we 

 mean to describe as more lovely than other regions, 

 as every day fulfils a promise, and promises anew. 

 And when we think on the vast range to which this 

 power of renovation extends : that Lapland and Ice- 

 land have their rose and their berry ; and that love 

 and life answer to the call of the sun in Jan Mayen 

 and Spitzbergen, we cannot but admire that simple 

 arrangement of the earth's motions, by which the whole 

 is brought about; and the perfect adaptation of the 

 production to the climate and the season. The land 

 birds of those northern regions, throng southward as 

 the winter sets in ; and they do so to a much greater 

 extent upon the continents than upon the islands ; be- 

 cause, in the latter places, the sea resists the frost, and 

 food is found upon the shores throughout the winter ; 

 many of the mosses, too, are in their most juicy and 



