literature, making each a little paradise'. Then to turn from the bright side of the picture to the dark one;-to the

Huts where poor men lie,

where the elegancies and amenities of life are not casting their glow,

But frosty winds blaw in the drift,
Ben to the chimla lug;

upon shivering groups, who have but little fire or clothes to defend them from its bitterness; where no light laugh rings through the room; no song is heard; no romantic tale, or mirthful conversation, circles among smiling faces and happy hearts; but the father,

BURNS.

Ill satisfied keen Nature's clamorous call, Stretched on his straw, himself lies down to sleep; While through the rugged roof and chinky wall Chill o'er his slumbers piles the drifty heap. Where the mother sees not her rosy and laughing children snugly consigned to their warm, soft beds, but contemplates, with a heart deadened by the miseries of to-day, and the fears of to-morrow, a sad, little, squalid crew around her, who, instead of plea

The APPROACH of WINTER ;-a SONNET.
[Written for Time's Telescope.]

By Delta, of Blackwood's Magazine.
Autumn hath yielded; hoary Winter now
Rules like a despot on his throne of frost ;
Verdure beneath the feathery snow is lost,
And whitely rears the cliff its shaggy brow.
'Tis vesper-time; and beautifully bright
Eve's courier star is sparkling in the sky:
Hover around the shadowy wings of night,
And chilly breezes through the lattice sigh.
Now let the hearth be warm, the taper clear,
And mute Attention listening, while we hear
Of him, the Prince of Denmark and his sire;
Or her, whom Romeo madly did adore;
Or of the apostate, Satan, evermore
Condemned to agonize 'mid penal fire.

с

sures and pastimes, know only wants and evils which oppress both soul and body; where, perhaps, illness has superadded its aggravations to the pains and languors of a poverty, which renders the indulgencies of a sick room the most hopeless of all things. These are the speculations to enhance our fireside pleasures, and to make those pleasures fruitful: linking our sympathies to the joys and sorrows of our kind, and arousing us to a course of active benevolence.

To proceed, however, to the varieties of wintry weather. This month, more than all others, shows us the

CONTINUED FROST:-A frost that, day after day, and week after week, makes a steady abode with us, till the beaten roads become dusty as in summer. It every day penetrates deeper into the earth, and farther into our houses, almost verifying the common adage, January will freeze the pot upon the fire.' Our windows, in the morning, are covered with a fine opaque frost-work, resembling the leaves and branches of forest trees. The water is frozen in the ewer; and the small birds are hopping with half-erected feathers upon our very door-sills, driven to seek relief from creation's tyrants by the still more pressing tyranny of cold and famine. The destruction of birds, and of all the smaller animals, in a continued frost, is immense; particularly if it be accompanied with snow. -Snow is a general informer; betraying the footsteps of every creature, great and small. The poacher and the game-keeper are equally on the alert while it lies freshly upon the ground,-the one to track game, the other, vermin; and thousands of polecats, weasels, stoats, rats, otters, badgers, and similar depredators, are traced to their hiding-places, in old buildings, banks, and hollow trees, and marked for certain destruction. The poacher, particularly on moonlight nights, makes great havock with game. Partridges, nestled down in a heap on the stubbles, are conspi

cuous objects; and hares, driven for food to gardens and turnip-fields, are destroyed by hundreds. Woodpigeons are killed, in great numbers, in cabbage and turnip fields by day, and by moonlight are shot in the trees where they roost. Larks frequent stubbles in vast flocks, and are destroyed by gun, net, and other devices.

As if the feathered race did not suffer enough from famine and the severity of the weather, every body seems now up in arms against them. The law, with a spirit of humanity honourable to the nation, is opposed to destroying game in a snow, yet this is a time of peculiar enjoyment to the sportsman. Waterfowls are driven from their secluded haunts, in meres and marshes, to open streams; snipes and woodcocks to springs and small runnels, where they become accessible and easily found. In towns and villages, every mechanic and raw lad is seen marching forth with his gun, ready to slay his portion of redwings, fieldfares, &c., which now are driven to the hedgefruit, and are become passive from cold and hunger. Let all good people who value their persons keep at a distance from suburban hedges; for such sportsmen are sure to pop at every bird which comes before them, be it sparrow, tomtit, or robin-redbreast,-nothing comes amiss, and they see nothing besides. In farmyards, trains of corn are laid, and scores of sparrows, finches, &c. are slaughtered at a shot. Even the schoolboy is bent upon their destruction: his traps, made of four bricks and a few pegs, are to be seen under every rick, and in every garden; and with a sieve, a stick, and a string drawn through a window or a key-hole, he stands ready to pounce upon his prey. Not even night, with its deepest shades, can protect the birds at this cruel time. They are startled from their slumbers, in the sides of warm stacks, by a sieve or a net fixed upon a pole being placed before them. Those which roost in hedges and copses are aroused by beating the trees and bushes, at the same

time that they are dazzled by the glare of a torch, and, flying instinctively towards the light, are knocked down and secured. This is called in some counties BIRD-MOPING; and, in this manner, are destroyed great numbers of pheasants, thrushes, and blackbirds; besides innumerable small birds. With all these enemies, and these various modes of destruction, it is only surprising that the race is not totally extirpated.

One of the pleasures of frosty weather will be found in walking. The clear and bracing air invigorates the frame; exercise gives a delightful glow to the blood; and the mind is held in pleasing attention to the phenomena and features of the season. Every sound comes to the ear with a novel and surprising distinctness;-the low of cattle, the rattle of far-off wheels, the hollow tread of approaching feet, and the merry voices of sliders and skaters, who are pursuing their healthful amusement upon every sheet of unruffled ice. In towns, however, walking is none of the safest. From time immemorial, boys have used it, as a special privilege of theirs, to make slides upon every causeway; maugre the abuse and menacing canes of old gentlemen,—and to the certain production of falls, bruises, and broken bones. Sometimes, too, rain, freezing as it falls, or a sudden thaw and as sudden a frost, covers the ground with a sheet of the most glassy ice. Solomon says there is a time for all things, and this is the time to scatter ashes or sawdust on the footpaths.

But of all the phenomena of winter, none equals in beauty, the

HOAR-FROST:-A dense haze sets in over-night which has vanished in the morning, and left a clear atmosphere, and a lofty arch of sky, of the deepest and most diaphanous blue, beaming above a scene of the most enchanting beauty. Every tree, bush, twig, and blade of grass, from the utmost nakedness, has put on a pure and feathery garniture, which appears the

work of enchantment, and has all the air and romantic novelty of fairy-land. Silence and purity are thrown over the earth as a mantle. The hedges are clothed in a snowy foliage, thick as their summer array. The woods are filled with a silent splendour; the dark boles, here and there contrasting strongly with the white and sparkling drapery of the boughs above, among which the birds fly, scattering the rime around them in snowy showers. There is

not a thicket but has acquired a sudden character of mysterious beauty. Every tuft of grass has assumed a momentary aspect of strange loveliness; and the mind is more affected by it from its suddenness of creation, and the consciousness of its speedy departure; for hoar-frosts and gipsies are said never to stay nine days in a place: the former, indeed, seldom continues three.

Winter.-In Six Sonnets.

[By Delta, of Blackwood's Magazine.]

NO. I.-DAYBREAK.

Slow clear away the misty shades of morn,
As sings the redbreast on the window-sill:
Fade the last stars; the air is stern and still;
And, lo! bright frost-work on the leafless thorn!
Why, day-god, why so late? the tardy heaven
Brightens; and, screaming downwards to the shore
Of the waste sea, the dim-seen gulls pass o'er,
A scattered crowd, by natural impulse driven
Home to their element. All yesternight

From spongy, ragged clouds poured down the rain,
And in the wind-gusts on the window pane
Rattled aloud:-but now the sky grows bright.
Winter! since thou must govern us again,
Oh, take not in fierce tyrannies delight.

NO. II.-SNOW-STORM.

How gloom the clouds! quite stifled is the ray,
Which from the conquered sun would vainly shoot

Through the blank storm; and though the winds be mute,

Lo! down the whitening deluge finds its way.

Look up!-a thousand, thousand fairy motes

Come dancing downwards, onwards, sideways whirled,
Like flocks of down, or apple-blossoms curled