CANADIAN NOMS-DE-PLUME IDENTIFIED. 265 



from the general havoc of their sylvan brethren, are to be found 

 here and there, erect in single beauty, relieving the eye after it has 

 been wearied in gazing on extended masses of unbroken foliage. It 

 stands on a ridge in the midst of an open country, and when seen 

 from a distance on a summer's evening, with a sky as yet glowing 

 with a thousand inimitable tints, it displays so minutely all its 

 tracery, branches, and even leaves, that it appears as if it would be 

 no difficult task to count them. But the day is as yet in all its 

 meridian splendour. The shrill, cheerful chorus of the grasshoppers 

 rings in my ears. The echoes of the flail mingle with the softer 

 liiurmiir of the breeze that wantons with the leaves over my head ; 

 and every sound and sight proclaims that the sand has still some 

 hours to run before the hum of industry and the voice of creation 

 will be mute. Rich, various and beautiful is the landscape on which 

 I gaze. At my feet the country descends into a gentle slope ; to 

 this succeeds a narrow, "fertile valley, with a stream winding through 

 it that waters the meadow, turns the wheel of the mill, and contri- 

 butes alike to the sustenance and health of man, the cool refreshment 

 of the panting cattle, the growth of manufactures, and the promo- 

 tion of agriculture. Beyond the valley the gTound ascends into a 

 gentle undulation. Fields that have consigned their produce to the 

 barn, lie denuded of their wealth, but dotted here and there with 

 browsing cattle. A I'ange of woods, with many a crested eminence 

 wrapped in the blue haze of an autumnal day, terminates my view. 

 The frost has not yet scattered the colours of the rainbow over the 

 forest, but there is nothing like sameness in the glorious landscape. 

 Orchards laden with reddening fruit, the white farm house with its 

 commodious outbuildings, the country inn, flanked by a long line of 

 Lombardy poplars, which here need not droop for want of Italian 

 skies, the towering mill with its pointed angles, and the broad 

 Ontario stretching to the right, are objects that successively attract 

 the eye as it travels with human restlessness in search of novelty and 

 variety. Now I turn my head, and perceive that the picture is incom- 

 plete, for I have not yet introduced into it a pleasing scene of the 

 unfinished harvest — the sheaves that you cannot look upon without 

 thanking God for your daily bread, and the rising stack on which 

 they will shortly be piled. Alongside of the gathered and gathering 

 treasures of the present year, the husbandman is committing to the 

 rich fallow the promise of the next ; and my mind is at once regaled 



