all harmony-the music of nature. I often listen to the happy creatures, singing so merrily in their greenwood haunts, and flitting airily along in search of materials for their nests, those wonderful little things! or looking for food for the young callow brood within; and I do marvel how any being can be so wantonly cruel, how any spirit can be so blind to the glory and happiness of nature, as to ensnare or destroy creatures so harmless, so glad, so beautiful as birds.

The fathers of English poetry have so lauded this, their favourite season, in undying verse, that of all poetical subjects,

Spring" has perhaps the least chance of receiving any thing like original treatment at the hands of their descendants, who must not only shrink to stars of small magnitude indeed beside the greater luminaries, but be content to appear for the most part as shining only with reflected light.

The Bards of old looked on nature with the eye of the naturalist, the fancy of the poet, and the grace of the painter. The simplest flower, or the most trivial incident, is described by the pencilling picture-like verse of CHAUCER, with a bright, clear, gleesome expression, only equalled in its peculiar beauty by his simple, impressive, and touching pathos. He revelled in the merry Spring-time, and many are the bright and sparkling descriptions of reviving nature which he has left us, telling how

The shoures sote of rain descendid soft
Causing the ground fele timis and oft,
Up for to give many an wholesome air;
And every plain was y-clothed faire

With newe grene; and makith smale floures
To springen here and there in felde and mede,-
So very gode and wholesom be the shoures,
That they renewin that was olde and dede
In winter time; and out of every sede
Springith the herbe; so that every wight
Of this seson wexith richt glad and light.

Spenser, in his "Cantos of Mutability," describes a procession of the seasons and months, from which I select the following. The attributes of each are very fancifully and appropriately marshalled forth.

So forth issued the seasons of the yeare,

First, lusty Spring, all dight in leaves of floures,
That freshly budded, and new bloosmes did beare,
In which a thousand birds had built their bowres,
That swetely sung to call forth paramoures;
And in his hand a iavelin he did beare,
And on his head, (as fit for warlike stoures,)

A guilt engraven morion he did weare,

That as some did him love, so others did him feare.

These marching softly, all in order went,
And after them the months all riding came;
First, sturdy March, with brows full sternly bent,
And armed strongly, rode upon a ram,
The same which over Hellespontus swam.
Yet in his hand a spade he also hent;
And in a bag all sorts of seeds y-same
Which on the earth he strewed as he went.

Next came fresh Aprill, full of lustyhed,
And wanton as a kid whose horne new buds;
Upon a bull he rode, the same which led
Europa floating thro' th' Argolick fluds:
His hornes were gilden all with golden studs,
And garnished with garlonds goodly dight
Of all the fairest flowres and freshest buds

Which th' earth brings forth; and wet he seemed in sight
With waves, thro' which he waded, for his Love's delight.

Then came faire May, the fayrest Mayde on ground,
Deckt with all dainties of her season's pryde,
And throwing flowres out of her lap around:
Upon two brethren's shoulders she did ride,
The twinnes of Leda; which, on eyther side,
Supported her like to their soveraine queene :
Lord! how all creatures laught when her they spide,
And leapt and daunced as they had ravisht beene!
And Cupid self about her fluttred all in greene.

These allegorical stanzas are quite in the "Faëry Queen" spirit. In that great poem Spenser displays infinite grandeur, loftiness, and luxuriant imagery; but when we peruse or listen to it, we are no longer in the world of reality—the world of Chaucer; we are at once witched away to Faëry Land, where nature is arrayed in such gorgeous hues, that much as the imagination may be fascinated and dazzled by the splendid dreams before us, we cannot walk in fancy side by side with the poet through his maze of enchantment, as we may, and do, with the poets of this world; our cheerful, simple-minded Chaucer especially, whose flowers, and trees, and arbours, and nightingales, are realities that seem to rise in social companionship around us, while listening to his truth-invested verse.

Spenser's descriptions in the Faëry Queen are grand and luxurious pictures, at which we gaze afar off, and wonder and admire, and gaze again; and by these he is chiefly known. But it is in his pastoral poems, his "Shepheard's Calender," "Colin Clout," Hymmes of Beauty," "Muiopotmos," "Prothalamion," and "Epithalamion," his many sweet sonnets, and his "Ruines of Time," that Spenser's truly natural poetry is found; and it is most true and beautiful. paint with the pen," said one of the Caracci; and plentifully scattered through the above mentioned poems are pictures of pure sylvan loveliness that the pencil of Claude himself could not exceed. We might almost fancy they were endowed with some spell of enchantment, they have such a delightfully calm, happy effect on the mind engaged in their contemplation.

"Poets

We will now

"Pursue his footing light

Through the wide woods and groves, with greene leaves dight."

The following exquisite stanzas are in his "Virgil's Gnat:"

The verie nature of the place, resounding
With gentle murmure of the breathing ayre,
A pleasaunt bowre with all delight abounding
In the freshe shadowe did for them prepayre,
To rest their limbs, with wearines redounding.
For first the high palme-trees, with braunches faire,
Out of the lowly vallies did arise,

And high shoote up their heades into the skyes.

Here also grew the rougher-rinded Pine,
The great Argoan ship's brave ornament,

Whom golden Fleece did make an heavenly signe;
Which coveting, with his high top's extent,
To make the mountaines touch the starres divine,
Decks all the forrest with embellishment;

And the black Holme that loves the watrie vale;
And the sweete Cypresse, signe of deadly bale.

Emongst the rest the clambring Yvie grew,
Knitting his wanton armes with grasping hold,
Least that the Poplar happely should rew

Her brother's strokes, whose boughes she doth enfold
With her lythe twigs, till they the top survew,
And paint with pallid greene her buds of gold.
Next did the Myrtle tree to her approach,

Not yet unmindful of her old reproach.

But the small birds in their wide boughs embowring,
Chaunted their sundrie tunes with sweete consent;
And under them a silver spring forth powring
His trickling streames, a gentle murmure sent;
Thereto the frogs, bred in the slimie scouring
Of the moyst moores, their iarring voyces bent;
And shrill grashoppers chirped them around:
All which the ayrie Echo did resound.

In this so pleasaunt place the Shepheard's flocke
Lay everie where, their wearie limbs to rest,

On everie bush, and everie hollow rocke,

Where breathe on them the whistling wind mote best;
The whiles the Shepheard self, tending his stocke,

Sate by the fountaine side, in shade to rest,
Where gentle slumbring sleep oppressed him
Displaid on ground, and seized everie lim.