NOTES ON NATURAL SCENERY.

Nature beats in perfect tune,

And rounds with rhyme her every rune,
Whether she work in land or sea,
Or hide underground her alchemy.
Thou canst not wave thy staff in air,

Or dip thy paddle in the lake,

But it carves the bow of beauty there,

And the ripples in rhymes the oar forsake.
R. W. EMERSON.

Picturesqueness is the characteristic of natural scenery. The beauty which results from severe symmetry-the beauty of Greek temples and Roman palaces-is of rare occurrence in the natural world. Symmetry exists indeed-symmetry the most delicately proportioned-but it is everywhere a substratum, overlaid and broken up by an endless variety of details.

This picturesqueness-variety predominating over, but not obliterating the element of unityis probably the highest condition of material beauty. It includes in itself all the capacities of rigid symmetry, and much besides. It is the

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æsthetic principle of God's creation, and, our spiritual nature being set to the same key, it mantles the mountains and the plains with an inexhaustible loveliness which cannot weary nor grow old.

How marvellous and how beautiful is man's earthly dwelling-place! What unfathomable mysteries crowd about us in every leaf and pebble! How wonderfully economized is this short schoolday life of ours! Every moment brings its silent but inevitable question, unintelligible at first, but as in the cycles of the days it returns to us again and again, the budding thought is stirred, then grows-develops-comprehends; and finally rises to its glorious destiny, the knowledge of the infinite Beauty and the adoration of the perfect Good.

Let us admit that

"The proper study of mankind is man,”

yet it is not the less true that he who finds no "pleasure in the pathless woods," no "rapture on the lonely shore," who despises buttercups and acorns, and is "bored to death" by a week's holiday in the country, is either a very shallow or a very undeveloped soul. There is a natural diversity

of tendencies, in some to the investigation of external nature, in others to the study of human passions and character; but I think the normal order of development in every mind should be the study of nature first, and of man afterwards. It must be rare indeed to find a child who has no sympathy with birds and flowers, with rocks and running streams. Take nature's hint, and let the young soul revel in the blooming fields, and brace itself on the windy mountain top; when it has imbibed the spirit of this early lesson, it will come strong and fresh to the still higher theme. It is a melancholy thing to come into the society of a man who has no relish for natural scenery. He may be witty and cultivated,

"Full of wise saws and modern instances,"

but it is easy to detect a certain shallowness,—a want of noble and poetic thought, which taints all his conversation with worldliness and poverty.

Intercourse with the calm face of nature soothes and solidifies the mind. It is not stimulating; the rustic ploughman, who gets Nature only for his company, grows dull and slow. But in this age apathy of intellect is not the besetting danger among the middle classes. We have stimulants

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enough in the wild race of competition for rank, and fame, and money. Our children are crammed with analytical grammar, mental arithmetic, physical geography, and Latin quotations. They are becoming dangerously precocious.

At the age of twelve they are as old as their grandfathers were at five-and-twenty, and they show their knowledge of the fact by taking to cigars and imitation meerschaums, and talking of "the gurls.". Poor little creatures! It is not their fault. They have been born into a fast-going age, and have had no time for solemn thought-hardly one day, since they were babies, for quiet contemplation. Turn them out to grass! Give them a month at least, in every summer, to roll in the long fern, and scramble among rocks and woods. Let them taste, for a few sunny days, the charms of silence and solitude. Their pulses will be calmer for it; their knowledge will take deeper root; nobler thoughts will elevate and purify their manners. Take them to those spots where nature concentrates her charms. Point out to them the loveliest scenery, the wildest gorges, the most secluded and romantic dells. Show them where the rarest flowers blossom in the secret shades, or on the mountain summit. Teach them the varied music

of the birds. Go with them in the dusk of evening to the woods and lonely places, that they may see the owls and the bats, the fox, the polecat, or the badger-strange wild creatures which townchildren hear of but rarely look upon. Spare no pains to plant in their young souls the image of the Beautiful, and it shall shine out again from eye, and hand, and tongue, gilding their lives with a refined and heavenly glory.

Our district boasts no great sublimity of scenery, but it is full of lovely views, and little nooks of beauty. What it has lost in wildness by the gradual cultivation of waste lands, and the draining of marshes, has been fully made up by the growth of new plantations, and the tasteful embellishment of the large estates.

The

The view from Bardon Hill claims precedence for its wonderful extent, and the completeness of its horizon, which is not broken by a single intervening eminence through its whole circle. Welsh mountains are distinctly visible in clear weather, and the German Ocean is said to come occasionally into view. An almost countless number of Church spires are seen studding the fertile plain of central England; among them are the spires of Coventry, and those of Lichfield Cathe