sight into the distinct characters of the 

 picturesque and the beautiful, especially 

 with regard to colour. 



The colours of spring deserve the name 

 of beauty in the truest sense of the word: 

 they have every thing that can give us that 

 idea; freshness, gaiety, and liveliness, 

 with softness and delicacy : their beauty is 

 indeed of all others the most generally ac-» 

 knowledged ; so much so, that from them 

 every comparison and illustration of that 

 character is taken. The tints of the flowers 

 and blossoms, in all the nearer views, are 

 clearly the most striking and attractive ; 

 but the more general impression is made 

 by the freshness of that vivid green, 

 with which the fields, the woods, and all 

 vegetation begins to be adorned. Be- 

 sides their freshness, the earlier trees 

 have a remarkable lightness and trans- 

 parency: their new foliage serves as a 

 decoration, not as a concealment; and 

 through it the forms of their limbs are seen, 

 as those of the human body under a thin 



