KIDD'S LONDON JOURNAL. 



45 



THE CLOSE OF AUTUMN. 



There is something in the final appear- 

 ance of this season, just as we step from 

 Autumn into Winter, that is well calculated 

 at all times to excite feelings of a melan- 

 choly interest in the reflective mind. The 

 garden is rife with homilies on the u wreck 

 of matter," and mementoes of mortality are 

 abundantly depicted in the withered flower 

 and drooping shrub ; whilst the woodlands 

 and groves are no less prolific in memorials 

 of all things passing to their original dust. 

 There is a funereal characteristic about 

 autumn which none of the other seasons 

 possess : she is the messenger of fruition 

 and death ; fruits ripen and flowers wither 

 at her approach — nor does this power cease 

 until vegetable vitality is subdued and laid 

 prostrate. Spring is the season of hope ; the 

 first crocus that peeps from beneath its pure 

 white mantle of snow is greeted with glad- 

 ness, because it is the precursor of brighter 

 and more beautiful flowers. Summer is the 

 season of buds, blossoms, and fruit ; nature 

 then puts on her richest jewellery, and we are 

 dazzled with the splendor and the beauty 

 of their colors. Autumn is the season of 

 plenitude — but then, before we have scarcely 

 done gazing at the lovely products of 

 Pomona, the " sere and yellow leaf" parts 

 from its spray, and, rustling scarcely audible 

 along, rests at our feet, warning us to pre- 

 pare for another change. It is not, how- 

 ever, amidst the fogs and smoke of a London 

 atmosphere that this change can be felt. 

 Autumn to be appreciated, must be enjoyed, 

 some miles from town. The " green and yel- 

 low melancholy 1 ' which there steals over the 

 landscape, and the mild and steady serenity 

 of the weather, with the transparent purity of 

 the air, speak not only to the senses, but 

 to the heart. There is a silence in which we 

 hear everything — a beauty that will be ob- 

 served. The cinquefoil, with one lingering 

 blossom, yet appears, and we mark it for its 

 loneliness. Rambling with unfettered grace, 

 the tendrils of the briony festoon with its 

 brilliant berries the slender sprigs of the 

 hazel and the thorn ; it ornaments their 

 plainness, and receives a support its own 

 feebleness denies. The agaric, with all its 

 hues, its shades, its elegant variety of 

 forms, expands its cone sprinkled with the 

 freshness of the morning — a transient fair, 

 a child of decay, that was born in a night 

 and will perish in a night. Anon the jay 

 springs up, and screaming tells of danger to 

 her brood. Then comes the loud laugh of the 

 woodpecker, joyous and vacant — the ham- 

 mering of the nut-hatch, cleaving its prize 

 in the chink of some dry bough — whilst the 

 humble bee, torpid on the disc of the purple 



thistle, just lifts a limb to pray forbearance 

 of injury, to ask for peace, and bid us — 



" Leave him, leave him to repose." 



All these are distinctive symbols of the 

 season, marked in the silence and sobriety 

 of the hour, and have left, perhaps, a 

 deeper impression on the mind than any 

 afforded by the profuse luxuriance of sum- 

 mer, or the verdant promises of spring. 



MISS PHILADELPHIA FIRKIN. 



Br Miss Mitford. 

 Chapter I. 



In Belford Regis, as in many of those 

 provincial capitals of the south of England, 

 whose growth and importance have kept 

 pace with the increased affluence and popu- 

 lation of the neighborhood, the principal 

 shops will be found clustered in the close, 

 inconvenient streets of the antique portion 

 of the good town : whilst the more showy 

 and commodious modern buildings are quite 

 unable to compete, in point of custom, with 

 the old, crowded localities, which seem even 

 to derive an advantage from the appearance 

 of business and bustle, occasioned by the 

 sharp turnings, the steep declivities, the 

 narrow causeways, the jutting-out windows, 

 and the various obstructions incident to the 

 picturesque, but irregular street-architecture 

 of our ancestors. 



Accordingly, Oriel Street, in Belford, a 

 narrow lane, cribbed and confined on the 

 one side by an old monastic establishment, 

 now turned into alms-houses, called the 

 Oriel, which divided the street from that 

 branch of the river called the Holy Brook, 

 and on the other bounded by the market- 

 place, whilst one end abutted on the yard of 

 a great inn, and turned so sharply up a steep 

 acclivity, that accidents happened there 

 every day ; and the other terminus wound, 

 with an equally awkward curvature, round 

 the churchyard of St. Stephen's — this most 

 strait and incommodious avenue of shops 

 was the wealthiest quarter of the borough. 

 It was a provincial combination of Regent 

 Street and Cheapside. The houses let for 

 double their value ; and, as a necessary con- 

 sequence, goods sold there at pretty nearly 

 the same rate ; horse-people and foot-people 

 jostled upon the pavement ; coaches and 

 phaetons ran against each other in the road. 

 Nobody dreamt of visiting Belford without 

 wanting something or other in Oriel Street ; 

 and although noise, and crowd, and bustle, 

 be very far from usual attributes of the good 

 town ; yet in chiving through this favored 

 region on a fine day, between the hours of 

 three and five, we stood a fair chance of 



