VI. 



' CALX AND EECALCITEATION. 



A LONG long time what a dreary time is Winter ! 

 Well may all Christendom have lent its comfortable 

 eflbrts through ages past, with a long and a strong 

 pull and a pull altogether, to give a point and a zest, 

 and a time of almost legislated conviviality, in the 

 Christmas fire-side and good fellowship, by way of 

 indoor barricade, a sort of jovial rebellion, against the 

 long despotism of Jack Frost ! It is hard to convey 

 an adequate idea of the bounding pleasure with which 

 after watching, month after month unchanged, the 

 rugged uncouth results of that novel piece of autumn 

 workmanship lately described I saw at last the 

 wholesome-looking combination of such a heterogene- 

 ous variety of earths that had lain icebound, as if for 

 perpetual and stereotyped ugliness, now melting down 

 under the genial influences of Spring, and that blessed 



