G28 
RURAL HOTTRS. 
is given up to its labors, and it is only the very last sheaves which 
are gathered in September. Yet hear what Spenser says ; 
“ Then came the Automne, all in yellow clad. 
As though she joyed in her plenteous store. 
Laden with fruit that made her laugh full glad ; 
Upon her head a wreath, which was enrolde 
With eares ofcorne of every sort, she bore, 
^ And in her hand a sickle she did holde. 
To reap the ripened fruits the earth did yolde.” 
The ears of com, and the sickle, were certainly the rightful 
property of Summer, who had already been spending weeks in 
the harvest-field. 
Thomson first introduces the season in very much the same 
livery as Spenser, as we may all remember : 
“ Crown’d with the sickle, and the whcaten sheaf. 
While Autumn, nodding o’er the yellow plain. 
Comes jovial on ; 
. . . . broad and brown, below, 
Extensive harvests hang the heavy head : — ” 
In classic days Spring was seen crowned with flowers ; Summer 
with grain ; Autumn with fruits ; and Winter with reeds. All 
the four seasons, the Anni of Roman mythology, took a mascu- 
line form. Traces of this may be found in the gender given to 
the different seasons, grammatically speaking, in the principal 
modem tongues of Etmope, for they are chiefly masculine. In 
Italian, spring, la primavera, is feminine ; Vestate, Vautumno, Vin- 
verno, are masculine ; in verse, il verno is occasionally used for 
winter ; and the gender of summer is sometimes changed to a 
feminine substantive, la state. In German, der Fruhling, der 
Sommer, der Winter, der fferhst, are all masculine, and so is the 
