SPECIMENS OF A FREE AND EASY PROSE TRANSLATION OF THOMSON'S SEASONS. BY WILLIAM COX. Spring. HA! look now at that old, shrivelled impersonation of ague, cramp, and rheumatism, who, "with dlue cold nose and wrinkled brow," is stealing along the great northern turnpike, shrinking, like a guilty thing, from the jolly sun, who is levelling his fiercest rays at the retreating recreant. It is discomfited Winter, once more in full flight towards his "regions of thick-ribbed ice;" there to sit amid storm and darkness, brooding over plans of future wreck and desolation, and recruiting his exhausted energies with fat leviathans, polar bears, and unctuous seals, until his appointed time of coming forth. Hark to the music of emancipated nature, as the grim old tyrant vanishes finally from the 1 sight behind you huge dark chain of mountains. The budding trees, stirred by the gentle wind, murmur forth their gratitude; there is a soft, low rustle of thankfulness in the tender grass; the sparkling stream sends forth its song of joy as it goes rippling and bounding over the shallows; and from every wood and coppice the feathered warblers pour forth. a stream of melody to the tune of "Gloomy winter's now awa'." Ho! Molly! throw open the windows that front the "soft southwest," and stow these top-coats, plaids, and umbrellas, in the attic. Let us look forth. Lo! "Now Nature sheds her mantle green On every blooming tree, And spreads her sheets of daisies white The spring violet, "blue as the sky above it," is faintly tinging the gale with its odoriferous breaththe pale primrose is timidly peering from the hedgeside-while the early daffodil, "That comes before the swallow dares, And takes the winds of March with beauty," together with crocuses, polyanthuses, and the other spring flowers, are shedding their various sweets around in all the full maturity of their beauty. But what is the still, tame rejoicing of trees, flowers, vegetables, grasses, and esculent plants, to the flutter of joy-of ecstacy, which pervades the animated portion of nature? What exquisite minstrelsy-what a mass of "wood-notes wild" are borne by the gentle breeze from yonder grovewhat billing, what cooing, what "amorous descants," what impassioned lays? What coquetting and flirting and declarations and acceptances are going on among the feathered tribes. And who would you suppose, fair one, is the bird to lead the van in the matrimonial experiments of the season ?-the tender thrush, the gay linnet, or blithesome lark, so busy carolling forth their hopes and fears. No such thing. You see yon great, awkward, dismallooking creature, as black as a crow, for it is a crow, or a rook, or a raven, or some other of the pie tribe, who waddles about with the grace of a duck and the self-consequence of a turkey-that fellow, with the gravity of a clergyman, and who, indeed, looks cut out for the chaplain of the woods— even he, is the first to woo and win; and long before the other amorous triflers have half completed their household arrangements, he has taken home his fair bride, (all brides are fair by courtesy, though black as the one in question,) and ere the woods have ceased to resound with the preparatory din of courtship, the bird of business smiles grimly on his callow young. Deduce a moral from this, oh ye fair! It is not among the herd of "pretty fellows"-of moths-of ball-room exquisites, who, "never wedding, ever wooing," keep fluttering around your beauties like bees (or wasps) round beds of flowers, that that useful, nay essential animal, a husband, is for the most part to be extracted. No-it is your quiet, grave men, whom you mock and flout and quiz and laugh at, that are the predestined fathers of your children. Though apparently unconscious of the existence of such things as females, yet, like his grace of Gloster, they "are sudden if a thing comes in their head." They see you home once from a friend's-hand you your shawl or gloves twice, and then the next time they catch you alone, it is, "Say will you marry me, Dear Ally, Ally Croker?" or whatever else your sweet name may be. But let us look at the quadrupedal department— those cows, for instance, just released from a course. of winter diet. How they seem to luxuriate in the change! And then what a melting richness-what a flavor of fields and flowers-does their present food impart to the butter! How different from the dry, fozy essence of turnips, which spoils our toast and temper through the winter months. Welcome, sweet Spring! if for nought but this. Sure there is some subtle essence of joysome undue preponderance of exhilarating gases in the atmosphere. What a unanimous buoyancy of spirit seems to animate that group of horses in the next field! and what a ludicrous development of muscular power is there in the awkward freaks and gambols of those fat, uncouth, large-headed, plebeian horses, as they jolt about in the vicinity of that slim, young chestnut colt-delicate yet vigorous-which flies across the meadow, and wheels and curvets as if every muscle in his body had the pliancy of silk, with the strength and elasticity of whalebone! Look at him! what elegance of attitude! what exquisite grace and freedom of movement! Would even the most ultra-democrat, with such a contrast before his eyes, think of saying that blood-that an unblemished ancestry was nought? With regard to the animal man, to be sure, whose genealogical affairs are naturally subject to so many contingencies, it is a matter of but very little consequence; but to a horse, an unblemished pedigreea stainless descent—is all in all. Whatever similarity there may be in the crimson current which flow through the veins of prince and peasant, in the horse it is as the difference between ruddy Burgundy and muddy porter. However little it may matter to the individual man, if his "ancient but ignoble blood Has crept through scoundrels ever since the flood," it is not so with the racer. Like Cæsar's wife, his dam's purity must not even be suspected. Look again at that young colt! Well may he arch his beautiful neck, and distend his disdainful nostrils, and look with surprise, pity, and contempt, at the indescribable movements of that lump of brawn which goes lumbering past him at a pace which it is impossible to characterize as either a trot, canter or gallop. Well may the young patrician stare. The rich blood of Arabia swells his proud veins. His sires were the free, the noble, the "desert born." No dull, domestic drudgery-no servile toil, weighed down their generous spirits, or wearied their fleet limbs. Theirs |