6 TniES AND SEASONS. 



jecting bank ; and now brawling and sparkling in frag- 

 mentary crystal, over a rocky bed, where the trout dis- 

 plays his speckled side as he leaps from pool to pool 



The willows on the river margin are gay with their 

 pendant catkins, to whose attractions hundreds of hum- 

 ming bees resort, in preference to the lovely flowers which 

 are already making the banks and slopes to smile. The 

 homeliest of these, even the dandelions and daisies, the 

 buttercups and celandines, are most welcome after the 

 dreariness and death of winter. 



" Earth fills her lap with treasures of her own ; " and 

 even " the meanest flower that blows " has, to the opened 

 eye, a beauty that is like a halo of glory around it. Yet 

 there are some which, from the peculiarities of their form, 

 colour, or habits, charm us more than others. The ger- 

 mander speedwell, with its laughing blue eyes, spangling 

 every hedge-bank — who can look upon it, and not love it ? 

 Who can mark the wild hyacinths, growing in battalions 

 of pale stalks, each crowned with its clusters of drooping 

 bells ; and interspersed with the tall and luxuriant cow- 

 slips, so like and yet so different, filling the air with their 

 golden beauty and sugary fragrance, without rapture? 

 Who can discover the perfumed violet amidst the rampant 

 moss, or the lily of the valley beneath the rank herbage, 

 without acknowledging how greatly both beauty and 

 worth are enhanced by humility ? 



If in this favoured land we are conscious of emotions of 

 peculiar delight, when we see the face of nature renewing 

 its loveliness after winter, where yet the influence of the 



