No 56. SATURDAY, JUNE 8. Like a maiden shy and fearful, Winter's wither'd clutches hold thee, I My paper owes, methinks, a kind of annual tribute to the Spring: under its auspices it began, and started into life with the primrose and the violet. question much if I should have had courage for this project at any other time of the year; but when all nature is teeming with a new produce, when every vegetable is acting up to its destination, and answering its calling, I should feel it as a tacit reproach to myself, if at the same moment I were conscious of an indisposition towards those duties and exertions for which, as a moral agent, I was designed. The aids too of a fine day, and a glowing horizon, are not inconsiderable towards forming a temper of mind adapted to spirited undertakings; and it is on this account, that if there be one day in the week finer than another, it is sure to become the æra of a cheerful Number; and on this occasion the fields of my neighbour Blunt are the scene of my operations. I know of no spot in which Spring appears with such advantage, as in the premises of this gentleman; who, since the surprising revolution wrought in his character, by the institutes and habits of our society, has developed a great many hidden qualities of a very agreeable kind, and among the rest, a peculiar talent in the distribution of rural scenery. There is, indeed, so strong a relationship between morals and taste, that the one is seldom improved without a manifest advantage to the other; and as they both have their birth in the same right constitution of mind, a secret tie of affinity always approximates them, however their natural tendency to unite may be crossed by superinduced habits, and perverse modes of education. Thus, for every step my neighbour Blunt has advanced in his plans of self-correction, I think I have remarked some corresponding improvement in the disposition of his grounds; and his present expansion of mind has been attended with a proportionate enlargement of his scenes and prospects. A little hillock in the midst of one of his fields, on which there is a circular bench round the trunk of an ancient oak, whence you look down upon his garden, which is only a more studied kind of park, has always been the scene of my lighter speculations; as his chesnut groves have been my resort, when it has been my purpose to submit to my readers a soberer train of thoughts. Shut up as I am at present, in the midst of the capital, I must necessarily forego these aids; but yet perhaps this denial gives me an intenser feeling of the beauties which I lose, and paints them yet stronger in idea, for the regret which accompanies the thought of them. The time which I had dedicated to this visit, is on the point of expiring; a circumstance that gives me the greater pleasure, as I observe that no one in this part of the world seems to feel interest in the progress of the any but year, as it facilitates the destruction of the species: thus, while Nature is busied in refreshing her works, and breathing new life and youth into the creation, we are in this metropolis only occupied about the progress of slaughter, and have no ears but for topics of calamity. Nobody talks now of the rose, or the lily, or the blossom, or the verdure: a new interest has succeeded, by which they are totally supplanted; and the odours of Spring are exchanged for smoke and powder. Her ethereal mildness, her balmy fragrance, and her rosy chaplets, will no longer be her favourite attributes; and it will be unclassical to represent her under any less formidable figure, than that of a frowning goddess, reposing on a cannon. She must adopt a crown of laurel, instead of her garlands of flowers; and instead of opening her buds, she must be occupied in opening her campaigns. Poetry too must give up many of the fine things which she has borrowed from the Spring, as well as many of the handsome things which she has said of her in return; and considering the threatening form under which she is viewed at present, the " εγέλασε δε γαια πέλωρη” of Hesiod will no longer apply to this season of the year. In another view also this novel character in which the Spring appears, threatens very much to circumscribe the range of compliment, and to impoverish the fund of allusion and comparison, which supply us with eulogies on the female sex. Thus, when we ascribe to a lady the breath of Spring, unless her perfections be such as not to leave it in doubt, it may not be immediately understood whether we mean that breath of Spring which comes from her carnations or from her cannons, from her howitzers or from her hyacinths. As to myself, however, who have received such true delight from contemplating the Spring under her ancient form, I am determined not to acknowledge her in her new character: I shall not follow her when she is transporting her artillery and baggage over dusty plains, where "fields, all iron, cast a gleaming brown;" but shall seek her through fields of cowslip and clover, and study to surprise her in those moments when she is sporting it with Zephyr and Flora " on a soft downy bank damask'd with flowers." I shall still persist in borrowing my allusions from her in my eulogies on the fair sex, and shall still come to her for patterns of sweetness and grace. I shall hope that the ladies will consider me with more than usual favour, on account of these my disinterested exertions in their cause; for their cause it certainly is, who have hitherto held all the seasons of the year under contribution to their praise; and who, when one province of compliment is invaded, may reasonably be apprehensive for them all. "Galla, tibi totus sua munera dedicat annus: Galla, to thee, the lavish year has given And Winter's purest snow has bleach'd the rest. I consider too, that if the Spring should lose its ancient honours and attractions, I may possibly lose a part of the credit attached to one of my principal receipts for the moral cures I undertake to perform; I mean the cultivation of rural pleasures. Now this is a circumstance of great national weight, and only next in importance to that defalcation of compliment sustained in the female empire. A course of quies contemplation at this season of the year is my chief dependance in those chronic cases of the mind, where the mass of our reasoning is vitiated, and where the sources of enjoyment are corrupt. A little Spring physic is as wholesome for mental diseases, as for those of the body; and I know of no moral medicines of a more alterative efficacy, than those which operate by the gradual introduction of new sentiments and tastes. I generally recommend a Spring in preference to a Summer course, because the novelty and vivacity of its productions engage us to persevere in it with greater cheerfulness and constancy; and make it the properest to be balanced against the common amusements of a dissipated career. But though, in this view of it, my prescription must be acknowledged to be excellent, in as much as, by giving us a sublimer relish of life, it discredits those pleasures which are at best unimproving and barren, yet, as a specific against the melancholy passions, I consider it as deserving still greater praise. Pride, envy, and those choleric and gloomy feelings, which for the most part accompany poverty and disappointment, are softened and subdued in our minds, as soon as our ambition is directed to more obvious gratifications, and to more attainable objects. The inquiry to which nature invites us is so boundless, so various, and so inexhaustible a theme, that no man, who has ever engaged in it with spirit, has ever complained of weariness or satiety, looked back with regret on the objects which he has abandoned for it, or repined at the triumphs of the great and the fortunate, in the more en,ied situations of life. It is a certain truth, that few things contribute more to calm the passions, and expand the heart, than this direction of our inquiries; it calms the passions, by disposing them to milder and more innocent |