332 
liURAL HOURS. 
any such in Milton, skillful as he was in picturing the groves and 
bowers of Eden ? 
" Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks 
In Vallamb-rosa," 
will occur to the memory ; but we have no coloring here. Is 
there a single line of this nature in Shakspeare, among the innu- 
merable comparisons in which his fancy luxuriated ? Shall Ave find 
one in the glowing pages of Spenser ? In Dry den ? In Chaucer, 
so minute in description, and delighting so heartily in nature — 
from the humble daisy to the great oaks, with " their leaves 
newe ?" One is almost confident that in these, and every other 
instance, the answer will prove a negative. 
Much the boldest touch of the kind, remembered at present, in 
European verse, is found in a great French rural writer, Delille ; 
speaking of the woods in Autumn, he says : 
" Le pourpre, I'orange, I'opale, I'mcarnat, 
De leurs riel^es couleurs etalent I'abondance." 
But these lines stand almost alone, differing entirely from other 
descriptions of the season by himself and many of his country- 
men, with whom it has very generally been " la pale automner 
Probably in these lines Delille had some particular season in 
view. European autumn is not always dull ; she has her bright 
days, and at times a degree of beauty in her fohage. From the 
more northern countries, as far south of Italy, one may occasion- 
ally see something of this kind, reminding one of the season in 
America. More than a hundred years since, Addison alluded 
briefly, in his travels, to the beauty of the autumnal woods in 
Southern Germany, where, indeed, the foliage is said to be finer 
