AND AMERICAN RURAL SPORTS. 



277 



stars burn with resplendent beauty; the galaxy stretches its 

 albescent glow athwart the northern sky, and the moon in 

 her monthly track sails amongst the glittering constellations 

 with a more queenly grace; sometimes without the visita- 

 tion of a single cloud, and, at others, seeming to catch from 

 their wind-winged speed an accelerated motion of her own. 

 It is a spectacle of which the contemplative eye is never 

 weary; though it is one, of all others, which fills the mind 

 with feelings of the immensity of the universe, the tremen- 

 dous power of its Creator, and of the insignificance of self. 

 A breathing atom, a speck even, upon the surface of a 

 world which is itself a speck in the tmiversal world, we 

 send our imagination forth amongst innumerable orbs, all 

 stupendous in magnitude, all swarming with existence, 

 vainly striving to reach the boundaries of space, till, aston- 

 ished and confounded, it recoils from the hopeless task, 

 aching, dazzled, and humbled in the dust. What a weary 

 sense attends the attempt of a finite being to grasp infinity! 

 Space beyond space! space beyond space still! There is 

 nothing for the mind to rest its wearied wing upon, and it 

 shrinks back into its material cell, in adoration and humility. 

 Such are the feelings and speculations which have attended 

 the human spirit in all ages, in contemplating this magnifi- 

 cent spectacle. David has beautifully expressed their ef- 

 fect upon him ; and there is a paper in the Spectator, Vol. 

 viii. No. 565, which forms an admirable commentary upon 

 his eloquent exclamation. The awful vastness of the power 

 of the Diety, evinced in the scenes which night reveals, is 

 sure to abase the pride of our intellect; and to shake the 

 overo-rowth of our self-love; but these influences are not 

 without their benefit; and the beauty and beneficence equal- 

 ly conspicuous in every object of creation, whether a world 

 or an atom, comes to our aid, to re-assure our confidence, 

 and to animate us with the proud prospect of an eternity of 

 still perfecting and ennobling existence. 



But the year draws to a close. I see symptoms of its 

 speedy exit. I see holly and missletoe in the market, in 

 every house that I visit, in every window that I pass, ex- 

 cept in those of the Society of Friends, who, though they 

 like old fashions, pay little regard to old customs, but treat 

 them as the "beggarly elements" of worn out supersti- 

 tions. They are philosophically right, but poetically 

 wrong. I see the apprentice boys going along the streets, 

 from house to house, distributing those little annual remem- 

 brances called Christmas-bills; and my imagination follows 

 these tyroes in trade, who now fill its lowest offices, and 

 would think more of a slide or a mince-pie than of all 

 the "wealth in Lunnun bank," through a few more 

 years, and beholds them metamorphosed into grave, impor- 

 tant, and well-to-do citizens; or, as it may chance to them, 

 shrunk into the thin, shrivelled, and grasshopper-like 

 4A - 



beings that care and disappointment convert men into. 

 And this awakes in me the consciousness of how little we 

 have thought of man and his toils, and anxieties, as from 

 day to day, and month to month, we have gone wandering 

 over the glorious face of the earth, drinking in its peaceful 

 pleasures; and yet what a mighty sum of events hns been 

 consummated! — what a tide of passions and aflections has 

 flowed, — what lives and deaths have alternately arrived — 

 what destinies have been fixed for ever, while we have 

 loitered on a violet-path, and watched the passing splen- 

 dours of the Seasons. Once more our planet has completed 

 one of those journeys in the heavens which perfect all the 

 fruitful changes of its peopled surface, and mete out the 

 few stages of our existence; and every day, every hour of 

 that progress has, in all her wide lands, in all her million 

 hearts, left traces that eternity shall behold. 



Yet if we have not been burthened with man's cares, we 

 have not forgotten him, but many a time have we thanked 

 God for his bounties to him, and rejoiced in the fellowship 

 of our nature. If there be a scene to stir in our souls all 

 our thankfulness to God, and all our love for man, it is that 

 of Nature. When we behold the beautiful progression of 

 the Seasons, when we see how leaves and flowers burst forth 

 and spread themselves over the earth by myriads in spring, 

 — how summer and autumn fill the world with loveliness 

 and fragrance, with corn and wine, it is impossible not to 

 feel our hearts, "breathe perpetual benedictions" to the 

 great Founder and Provider of the world, and warm with 

 sympathetic afiection towards our own race, for whom he 

 has thought fit to prepare all this happiness. There is no 

 time in which I feel these sentiments more strongly than 

 when I behold the moon rising over a solitary summer land- 

 scape. The repose of all creatures of the earth makes 

 more sensibly felt the incessant care of him who thus sends 

 up "his great light to rule the night," and to shine softly 

 and silently above millions of sleeping creatures, that take 

 no thought for themselves. 



Such are the thoughts which flow into the spirit of the 

 solitary man as he walks through the pure retreats of Na- 

 ture — such have been mine as I have gone on, from day to 

 day, building up this "Book of the Seasons:" and in the 

 spirit of thankful happiness and "goodwill to all," I thus 

 bring it to an end. — Howiit's Book of the Seasons. 



PRESERVATION OF FRUIT TREES FROM HARES. 

 According to M. Bus, young fruit trees may be preserv- 

 ed from the bites of hares, by rubbing them with fat, and 

 especially hog's lard. Apple and pear trees thus protected, 

 gave no signs of the attacks of these animals, though their 

 foot marks were abundant on the snow beneath them. 



