WINTER, like every other season, has its appropriate sentiments, but suited to the mood of the poet's mind. It suggests pictures of home comfort: Let Winter come! let polar spirits sweep The darkening world, and tempest-troubled deep! With mental light, the melancholy day! And, when its short and sullen noon is o'er, Blaze on the hearth, and warm the pictur'd wall! CAMPBELL. Even its gloom has its inspiration of solemn musings, such as Burns has beautifully described:-"As I am what the men of the world, if they knew such a man, would call a whimsical mortal, I have various sources of pleasure and enjoyment, which are, in a manner, peculiar to myself, or some here and there such other out-of-the-way person. Such is the peculiar pleasure I take in the season of winter, more than the rest of the year. This, I believe, may be partly owing to my misfortunes giving my mind a melancholy cast: but there is something even in the Mighty tempest, and the hoary waste, Abrupt, and deep stretch'd o'er the buried earth, which raises the mind to a serious solemnity, favourable to every thing great and noble. There is scarcely any earthiy object gives me more-I do not know if I should.call it plea sure-but something which exalts me, something which enraptures me-than to walk in the sheltered side of a wood, or high plantation, in a cloudy winter day, and hear the stormy wind howling among the trees, and raving over the plain. It is my best season for devotion: my mind is wrapt up in a kind of enthusiasm to Him who, in the pompous language of the Hebrew bard, walks on the wings of the wind." In one of these seasons, just after a train of misfortunes, I composed the following: 6 4TH QUARTER. The wintry west extends his blast And hail and rain does blaw: Or the stormy north sends driving forth The blinding sleet and snaw: While, tumbling brown, the burn comes down, And roars frae bank to brae ; And bird and beast in covert rest, The sweeping blast, the sky o'ercast, Let others fear, to me more dear The tempest's howl, it soothes my soul, The leafless trees my fancy please, Their fate resembles mine! Thou Pow'r Supreme, whose mighty scheme. These woes of mine fulfil; Here firm I rest, they must be best. Because they are Thy will! Winter calls up the personifications of the painter-poets:— Chattering his teeth for cold that did him chill; Winter sets the poetical observer to his natural descriptions: And fair Flora's wealth was geason*. Each fair thing that summer bloom'd ; Flow'rs wither'd, birds were sad: When I saw a shepherd fold Sheep in cote to shun the cold; SPENSER. "Love is folly, when astray." GREENE. With chilling cold had pierced the tender green; The gladsome groves that now lay overthrown, Was all despoiled of her beauties' hue; And soot fresh flowers (wherewith the summer's Queen The winter's wrath, wherewith each thing defaced, Hawthorn had lost his motley livery: The naked twigs were shivering all for cold; Each thing (methought) with weeping eye me told Myself within, for I was gotten out Into the fields, whereas I walk'd about. The modern bard moralizes on Winter in unrhymed lyrics :- Sweet are the harmonies of Spring, Sweet is the Summer's evening gale, And sweet the autumnal winds that shake The many colour'd grove. And pleasant to the sober'd soul The silence of the wintry scene, When Nature shrouds herself, entranced In deep tranquillity. Not undelightful now to roam The wild heath sparkling on the sight; The forest's ample rounds. And see the spangled branches shine That clasps its foliage close. Nor void of beauties now the spring, SACKVILLE. Have soothed the thirsty pilgrim's ear The green moss shines with icy glare; When faint the sun-beams smile. Reflection too may love the hour For Nature soon in Spring's best charms Expand the bursting bud again, And bid the flower rebloom. SOUTHEY. The contrasts of Summer and Winter were never more harmoniously pat than by the great master of metrical harmony: It was a bright and cheerful afternoon, Towards the end of the sunny month of June, All things rejoiced beneath the sun, the weeds, The willow leaves that glanced in the light breeze, It was a winter such as when birds die In the deep forests; and the fishes lie Stiffened in the translucent ice, which makes Gather about great fires, and yet feel cold: SHELLEY. Even the homely song of the Ayrshire ploughman, engrafted upon an old melody, is beautiful and true : Up in the morning's no for me, Up in the morning early; When a' the hills are cover'd wi' snaw, I'm sure it's winter fairly, Cauld blaws the wind frae east to west, The drift is driving sairly; Sae loud and shrill's I hear the blast, The birds sit chittering in the thorn, And lang's the night frae e'en to morn, I'm sure it's winter fairly. Up in the morning, &. BURNS 275.-REFLECTIONS UPON EXILE. BOLINGBROKE. WHO now reads Bolingbroke?' said Burke. Few, indeed. Some are deterred by his character for infidelity; some because many of the subjects on which he treats are of temporary interest. A great orator of our own day has written his panegyric. Of his abilities no one can doubt: of his honesty we are inclined to believe that it was neither much below nor much above the standard by which most orators and party leaders are tried by those who come after them. But as an author he has remarkable merit. Pope called him "the best writer of his age." The following extract is from his 'Reflections upon Exile.' It would be interesting if only viewed in connection with his own circumstances. It is professedly an imitation of Seneca. Noble as are some of the sentiments, pure as is the style, we cannot avoid seeing how insufficient is mere philosophy to take the sting out of adverse fortune; and we know moreover that his own exile had none of the calm he describes, but that he lived and died an intriguer. Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, was born at Battersea in 1678. His political life belongs to history. He was an exile from 1715 to 1723, being attainted of High Treason; but was permitted to return to England, and was restored to his property, though always excluded from the House of Lords. He died in 1751.] Dissipation of mind and length of time are the remedies to which the greatest part of mankind trust in their afflictions. But the first of these work a temporary, the second a slow effect; and such are unworthy of a wise man. Are we to fly from ourselves that we may fly from our misfortunes, and fondly to imagine that the disease is cured because we find means to get some moments of respite from pain? Or shall we expect from time, the physician of brutes, a lingering and uncertain deliverance? Shall we wait to be happy till we can forget that we are miserable, and owe to the weakness of our faculties a tranquillity which ought to be the effect of their strength? Far otherwise. Let us set all our past and present afflictions at once before our eyes. Let us resolve to overcome them, instead of flying from them, or wearing out the sense of them by long and ignominious patience. Instead of palliating remedies, let us use the incision knife and the caustic, search the wound to the bottom, and work an immediate and radical cure. The recalling of former misfortunes serves to fortify the mind against later. He must blush to sink under the anguish of one wound, who surveys a body seamed over with the scars of many, and who has come victorious out of all the conflicts wherein he received them. Let sighs and tears, and fainting under the lightest stroke of adverse fortune be the portion of those unhappy people whose tender minds a long course of felicity has enervated; while such as have passed through years of calamity, bear up, with a noble and immoveable constancy, against the heaviest. Uninterrupted misery has this good effect, as it continually torments, it finally hardens. Such is the language of philosophy; and happy is the man who acquires the right of holding it. But this right is not to be acquired by pathetic discourse. Our conduct can alone give it us; and, therefore, instead of presuming on our strength, the surest method is to confess our weakness, and, without loss of time, to apply ourselves to the study of wisdom. This was the advice which the oracle gave to Zeno, and there is no other way of securing our tranquillity amidst all the accidents to which human life is exposed. In order to which great end, it is necessary that we stand watchful, as sentinels, to discover the secret wiles and open attacks of the capricious goddess, Fortune, before they reach us. Where she falls upon us unexpectedly, it is hard to resist ; but those who wait for her, will repel her with ease. The sudden invasion of an enemy overthrows such as are not on their guard; but they who foresee the war, and prepare themselves for it before it breaks out, stand, without difficulty, the first |