very gloom and awfulness with which the year retreats, sending the spirit inwards. In all these scenes and changes, the soul of the lover of Nature luxuriates; and even finds beauty and strength in the stern visitations of winter. He goes with Nature in all her rounds, and rejoices with her in all. There needs for him no great event, no combination of stirring circumstances; it is not even necessary to him that he be poet, or painter, or sportsman; if he have not the skill, or faculty of any, he has the spirit of all. For him, there are spread out in earth and heaven pictures such as never graced the galleries of art. He sees splendours, and scenes painted by the hand of the Almighty, for whose faintest imitations the connoisseur would pay the price of an estate. To him every landscape presents beauty; to him every gale breathes pleasure; and every change of scene season is a new unfolding of enjoyment. He knows nothing of the heart-burnings and jealousies which infest crowded places. He is not saddened by the sight of wickedness, or the experience of ingratitude and deceit. He is exempt from the ennui of polished society; the sneers of its unkindly criticism; and the hollowness of its professions. He converses with the Great Spirit which lives through the universe, and fills the hearts that open to its influence, with purity, humanity, the sweetest sympathies, the most holy desires; and overshadows them with that profound peace and that inward satisfaction, which are themselves the most substantial happiness. or That these are no vain imaginations, but positive realities scattered abroad for universal acceptance as much as the blessings of air and sunshine, we have only to open the works of our best writers to be convinced of ;-to see how the expression of their happiness breaks from them continually. It is this overflowing and irrepressible gladness of a heart resting on nature which gives such a charm to the writings of White and Evelyn, and good old Izaak Walton. And the poets-they are full of it. Listen to them, and then consider the nobility of their views, and the lofty purity of their souls, and then admit the power and depth of that influence which lives in nature and speaks in Christianity. So shalt thou see and hear The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible Or if the secret ministry of frost Quietly shining to the quiet moon. Coleridge. And for the cordial, substantial, heart-filling contentment which is gathered from the quietness of rural life, hear what Sir Henry Wotton, a most accomplished man, who had seen much of court life, both at home and abroad, says, Would the world now adopt me for her heir; Piece of money value ten shillings. Command bare heads, bowed knees; strike justice dumb, As well as blind and lame; or give a tongue To stones by epitaphs; be called "great master" In the loose rhymes of every poetaster- Welcome pure thoughts; welcome ye silent groves; And if contentment be a stranger then, I'll ne'er look for it but in heaven again. Such are the pleasures that lie in the path of the lover of the country; pleasures like the blessings of the Gospel, to be had without money, and without price. There are many, no doubt, who will deem them dull and insignificant; but the peace which they bring "passeth understanding," and we can make a triumphant appeal from the frivolous and the dissipated, to the wise and noble of every country and age. 348 CHAPTER XV. LINGERING CUSTOMS. Many precious rites And customs of our rural ancestry Are gone, or stealing from us. Wordsworth. How rapidly is the fashion of the ancient rural life of England disappearing! Every one who lived in the country in his youth, and looks back to that period now, feels how much is lost! How many of the beautiful old customs, the hearty old customs, the poetical old customs are gone! Modern ambition, modern wealth, modern notions of social proprieties, modern education, are all hewing at the root of the poetical and picturesque, the simple and cordial in rural life; and what are they substituting in their stead? We will endeavour, anon, to shew what they are doing, and what they are leaving undone; just now let us try to seize on the fluttering apparition of primitive custom, and bid it a hearty good-bye, before it is gone for ever. I have, in another place, shown how all the more fanciful and refined of our village festal habits have vanished. The May-day dances, and gathering of May-branches-the scattering of flowers on holiday occasions in village streets, and about our houses. Even the planting of flowers about the graves in our village churchyards, once so common in England, is now rarely to be seen. Camden in his Britannia, and John Evelyn, mention that it was the custom of their times in Surrey, but who in Surrey sees anything of the kind now? You may meet with a solitary shrub, or with graves bound down with withes and briars; but nothing of that general planting of flowering shrubs which you see in Wales. It is the fate of champaign countries, to have their rustic customs sooner obliterated than those of mountain regions. The Scotch still retain their penny-weddings and Halloweens, the Welsh their regular wedding customs, and funeral customs as singular; but how wonderfully have the simple customs on these occasions of our English hamlets dwindled in our days! Washington Irving, in an interesting paper in the Sketch-Book, speaks of a practice in some villages of hanging up in the churches at the funeral of a maiden, gloves and garlands cut in paper. In what church is that done now-a-days? And yet, though I never saw a funeral in which so beautiful and appropriate a practice was retained, I well recollect seeing those gloves and garlands hanging in the church of my native village in Derbyshire; and I have heard my mother say, that in her younger days she has helped to cut and prepare them for the funeral of young women of the place. The garlands were originally of actual flowers-lilies and roses-and the |