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 ‘'universal 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 
overgrowth, 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 
4 A 
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 fearth, drinking in its peaceful 
pleasures; and yet what a mighty sum of events has been 
consummated! — what a tide of passions and affections has 
flowed, — -what lives and deaths have alternately arrived — 
what destinies have been fixed for ever;, while we have 
loitered on a violet-pajh, 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 
ipf 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 affection 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. — Howitt’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. 
