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156 Nature's Diary-November Scenery-The Fall of the Leaf. [VOL. 4

strongest tea he saw in China, called lestial Empire," with its beastly inhabi"Yu-tien," and used on occasions of tants, is concerned; but their nastiness ceremony, hardly coloured the water. in this respect is so well known, that It consisted of the scarcely expanded we need not say that in the public buds of the plant. He thinks that the market eighteen-pence was equally the plant might be successfully cultivated price of a cat, a pheasant, or four rats! at the Cape of Good-Hope, as all its There, however, remain a few notices known habitats are within the tempe- of Manilla, and a very whimsical acrate zone. It succeeds best on the count of the Orang-Outang, which we sides of mountains where there can be shall reserve for our next publication. but little accumulation of soil. In the interim, our opinion and our Were we to extract the description extracts will, we trust, recommend a of the filthy feeding of the Chinese on production which has had great losses dogs, cats, rats, and offals, in prefer- to overcome, and great difficulties to ence to wholesome meat, we should struggle with; and which is, nevertheexhaust all that we intend to copy from less, a very pleasing addition to our Mr. Abel's work, in as far as "the Ce- stock of useful and entertaining Travels.

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From the London Time's Telescope, for Nov. 1818.
THE NATURALIST'S DIARY,

IN NOVEMBER.

The wood-path is carpeted over with leaves,
The glories of AUTUMN decay ;

The Goddess of Plenty has bound up her sheaves.
And carried the harvest away.

His dogs no merry circles wheel,
But shivering, follow at his heel;
A cowering glance they often cast,
As deeper moans the gathering blast.

The trees are now stripped of their

LOOMY as this month usually is called, yet there are many intervals of clear and pleasant weather: the mornings are, occasionally, sharp, but the hoarfrost is soon dissipated by the Sun, and a fine open day follows. Of foliage. The separation of the leaves November scenery, on the other side of the Tweed, Walter Scott has drawn a pleasing picture; much of it, however, applies equally to more southern regions.

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No longer Autumn's glowing red
Upon our forest-hills is shed;
No more beneath the evening beam
Fair Tweed reflects their purple gleam ;
Away hath passed the heather bell
That bloomed so rich on Needpath fell;
Sallow his brow, and russet bare
Are now the sister-heights of Yare.
The sheep, before the pinching heaven
To sheltered dale and down are driven,
Where yet some faded herbage pines,
And yet a watery sunbeam shines;
In meek despondency they eye
The withered sward and wintry sky,
And far beneath their summer hill
Stray sadly by Glenkinnon's rill:
The shepherd shifts his mantle's fold,
And wraps him closer from the cold:

from their branches is termed the fall; and, in North America, the season in which this takes place is universally known by that name. The falling of leaves is not always in consequence of the injuries of autumnal frosts, for some trees have their appropriate period of defoliation, seemingly independent of external causes. The lime (tilia europæa) commonly loses its leaves before any frost happens; the ash seems, on the contrary, to wait for that event; and at whatever period the first rather sharp frost takes place, all its leaves fall at once. The fall of the leaf can be considered only as a 'sloughing or casting off diseased or worn-out parts,' whether the injury to their constitution may arise from external causes or from an exhaustion of their vital powers. Hence a separation takes place, either in the footstalk, or more usually at its base, and the dying part quits the

VOL. 4.]

Nature's Diary for November-Forest Scenery.

vigorous one, which is promoted by the
weight of the leaf itself, or by the action
of autumnal winds upon its expanded
form. Sometimes, as in the hornbeam,
the beech, and some oaks, the swelling
of the buds for the ensuing season is
necessary to accomplish the total separ-
ation of the old stalks from the inser-
tions.

How fall'n the glories of these fading scenes!
The dusky beech resigns his vernal greens ;
The yellow maple mourns in sickly hue,
And russet woodlands crown the dark'ning view.

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Leaves undergo very considerable changes before they fall: ceasing to grow for a long time previous to their decay, they become gradually more rigid and less juicy, often parting with their pubescence, and always changing their healthy green colour to more or less of a yellow, sometimes a reddish hue.* One of the first trees that becomes naked is the walnut; the mulberry, horse-chesnut, sycamore, lime, and ash, follow. The elm preserves its verdure for some time longer: the beech and ash are the latest deciduous forest trees in dropping their leaves. All lopped trees, while their heads are young, carry their leaves a long while. Appletrees and peaches remain green very late, often till the end of November: young beeches never cast their leaves till spring, when the new leaves sprout, and push them off: in the autumn, the beechen leaves turn of a yellow deep

chesnut colour.'

La FEUILLE.

De la tige detachee
Pauvre feuille dessechee

Ou vas-tu ?-je n'en sais rien;
L'orage a frappe le chene
Qui seul etait mon soutien ;
De son inconstante baleine,
Le Zephyr et l'Aquilon,
Depuis ce jour me promene
De la foret a la plaine,
De la montagne au vallon;
Je vais ou le vent me mene
Sans me plaindre ou m'effrayer
Je vais ou va toute chose,

Ou va la feuille de rose,

Et la feuille de laurier.

157

To the English reader, the following very literal transcript of the original, for which we are indebted to a friend may prove acceptable :—

The LEAF.

Parted from thy parent bough,
Withered leaf, where wanderest thou?
Alas! I know not, reck not where :
The oak, beneath whose fostering care
I flourished, tempests have laid low:
Since when, th' uncertain winds, that blow
Hither and thither in their sport,
Have borne me on.-I neither court
Nor heed their faithless breath-but stray
From the forest's gloomy way,
To the bare and open plain;
Rest there a moment-aud again
From the valley to the hill
Wander, at their fickle will.

I

go where all things earthly tend-
Where all must have one common end;
As well the gay and flaunting rose,
As the sad laurel, weeping o'er its woes.

The decay and fall of leaves have been favourite themes with poets and philosophers. The first they furnish with beautiful descriptions; the latter with solemn contemplations and pathetic moral sentiment. There is something, indeed, extremely melancholy in that gradual process by which the trees are stripped of all their beauty, and left so many monuments of decay and desolation. Homer, the venerable father of poetry, has deduced from this succession of springing and falling leaves, a very apposite comparison for the transitory generations of men :

Like leaves on trees the race of man is found,
Now green in youth, now withering on the ground.
Another race the following spring supplies,
They fall successive, and successive rise ;
So generations in their course decay,

So flourish these when those are past away.

How does every thing around us bring its lesson to our minds! Nature is the great book of God. In every page is instruction to those who will read. Morality must claim its due. Death in various shapes hovers round Thus far went the heathen moralist. He had learned no other knowledge from these perishing forms of nature, but that men, like trees, are subject to death.

American trees and shrubs in general, and such European ones as are botanically us. related to them, are remarkable for the rich tints of red, purple, or even blue, which their leaves assume before they fall. Hence the autumnal foliage of the woods of North America is, beyond all imagination, rich and splendid.

158

Nature's Diary for November-Salmon Hunting.

The meanest herb we trample in the field
Or in the garden nurture, when its leaf
In Autumn dies, forebodes another Spring,
And from short slumber wakes to life again.
Man wakes no more! Man, peeriess, valiant, wise,
Once chilled by death, sleeps hopeless in the dust,
A long, unbroken, never-ending sleep.

Moschus.

His

Better instructed, learn thou a nobler lesson. Learn that the God who, with the blast of winter, shrivels the tree, and with breezes of spring restores it, offers it to thee as an emblem of thy hopes! The same God presides over the natural and moral world: works are uniform. The truth which nature teaches are the truths of revelation also. It is written in both these books, that the power which revives the tree will revive thee ulso like it, with increasing excellence and improvement,

Happy he,

Whom what he views of beautiful, or grand,
In nature, from the broad majestic oak
To the green blade the twinkles in the Sun,

Prompt with remembrance of a PRESENT GOD.

The excellent Bishop HORNE has a beautiful little Poem on this subject, which is too interesting to be omitted in this place; we can have no better companion in our autumnal walks than these fine moral stanzas :

See the leaves around us falling,
Dry and withered to the ground!
Thus to thoughtless mortais calling
With a sad and solemn sound:-
'Sons of Adam-once in Eden,
Blighted when like us you fell,
Hear the lecture we are reading,
"Tis, alas! the truth we tell.
'Virgins! much, too much presuming,
In your boasted white and red,
View us late in beauty blooming,
Numbered now among the dead.
'Griping Misers! nightly walking,

See the end of all your care;
Fled on wings of our own making,
We have left our owners bare.
Sorts of Honour! fed on praises,
Flutt'ring high on fancied worth,
Lo! the fickle air that raises

Brings us down to parent Earth.
'Learned Sophs! in systems jaded,
Who for new ones daily call,
Cease at length by us persuaded,
Every leaf must have a fall.

Youths though yet no losses grieve you, Gay in health and manly grace,

Let no cloudless skies deceive you-
Summer gives to Autumn place.

Venerable Sires! grown hoary,

Hither turn th' unwilling eye;
Think, amid your falling glory,
Autumn tells a Winter nigh.

"Yearly in our course returning,
Messengers of shortest stay,
Thus we preach this truth unerring,
Heav'n and Earth shall pass away!

'On the Tree of Life Eternal

Man! let all thy hopes be staid, Which alone, for ever vernal,

Bears a leaf which ne'er shall fade !"

[VOL. 4

That highly-esteemed fish, the salmon, now ascends rivers to deposit its spawn in their gravelly beds, at a great distance from their mouths. In order to arrive at the spots proper for this purpose, there are scarcely any obstacles which the fish will not surmount. They will ascend rivers for hundreds of miles; force themselves against the most rapid streams, and spring with amazing agility over cataracts of several feet in height. They are taken, according to Mr. Pennant, in the Rhine, as high as Basil: they gain the sources of the Lapland rivers, in spite of their torrent-like currents: they surpass the perpendicular falls of Leixlip, Kennerth, and Pont Aberglasslyn. At the latter of these places, Mr. Pennant assures us that he has himself witnessed the efforts of the salmon, and seen scores of fish, some of which succeeded, while others miscarried in the attempt, during the time of observation. At this time, nets or baskets are placed under the fall, and numbers are taken after an unsuscessful leap.* It may be added, that the salmon, like the swallow, is said to re

*

A curious mode of taking this fish, called salmon hunting (as practised at Whitehaven), is mentioned by Mr. Bingley: When the tide recedes, what fish are left in the shallows are discovered by the agitation of the water---the hunter, with a three-pointed barbed spear, fixed to a shaft fifteen feet long, plunges into these pools at a trot, up to the belly of his horse. He makes ready his spear, and, when he overtakes the salmon, strikes the fish with almost unerring aim; that done, by a turn of the handy he raises the salmon to the surface, wheels his horse towards the shore, and runs the fish on dry land without dismounting. From forty to fifty fish have been killed in a day; ten are, howeyer, no despicable booty.

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VOL. 4.] Wilkie's Picture from Burns-Howard's Apotheosis.'

159

turn, each season, to the self-same spot destruction arises from the practice of to deposit its spawn. netting the fords when the water is the salmon The value of this article of life has low, by which means advanced equally with every kind of spawn, deposited upon the sand and food, even in situations where salmon gravel, being loosened by the net, is were most abundant. The amazing swept away, and becomes food for fish disproportion in the present price of of an inferior quality, such as chub, 'I he above, combinsalmon to that of twenty or thirty years roach, dace, &c. ago, when it was sold from threepence ed with other causes, such as the to sixpence per lb., is attributed, in a speedy conveyance now afforded, not great degree, to the several weirs upon only to the metropolis, but to all parts the rivers, constructed so as to prevent of the country, have fixed a worth upthe smallest salmon fry from escaping, on the salmon which will not quickly It is admit of reduction.* as they proceed towards the sea. a known fact, that the fry have been taken in such quantities, that the captors have been obliged to throw them away. Another mode of incalculable

* In February, 1809, a Severn salmon, weighing nineteen pounds, was sold at Billingsgate for the immense sum of ONE GUINEA per pound.

FINE ARTS.

LOVE-MAKING; FROM THE SONG OF "DUN-
CAN GRAY."---D. Wilkie, R. A.

Maggie coost her head fu' heigh,
Look'd asklant and unco skeigh
Gart poor Duncan stand abeigh,

Ha, ha, the wooing o't.-Burns.

E have seen pictures of more scientific

The

shape of remonstrance and advice. popular and excellent productions of the author of Rob Roy, Waverly, the Antiquary, &c. are of themselves amply attractive, and afford the finest scope for the pencil of the artist; but when the writer of such estimable works calls personally upon Mr. Wilkie, and recommends (in the Antiquary) the interior of Muklebuckit's cottage to the pen

W arrangement, of more concentrated cil of his countryman, it is impossible to pe

effect and repose, from the hand of this admirable artist, but none with more complete expression and character. The principal persoos in this little drama of art are perfect; so much so as to produce a desire in the mind of the beholder to follow them into after-life, and to anticipate, from the disdain and coquetry so exquisitely depicted in the countenance of Maggie, and the disappointment swelling into anger in that of her lover, that their marriage state will be cheqnered by a few storms, at least (for we are amiable critics) will not be allowed to stagnate. Of the damsel we may say that expression is carried to her very fingers' ends; and that Duncan clenches his hat in a way, which, without seeing his face, would teach us to divine what his feelings were. The kindly persuasive attitudes and looks of the father and mother are also charmingly given; and the rustic enjoyment of the joke, of which we catch a glimpse at the half-open door, adds humour to the scene, while it tells that there are some friends in the secret of Maggie's heart in spite of her coyness and scorn. Upon the whole, the intention of the artist has been fully accomplished in respect to the emotions he intended to raise; the story is pointed and sarcastic, with sufficient of humorous incident to correct the spirit of satire upon so serious a subject as love-making. The tone of colour is well adapted to keep up the interest; it is warm and lively. The drawing possesses all Mr. Wilkie's usual correct

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ruse the description of the fisherman's
and weigh the qualifications of the painter,
without earnestly wishing that the challenge
should not be thrown out in vain, and that
Mr. Wilkie would turn his attention to a sub-
ject to which perhaps he alone can do ade-
quate justice.

APOTHEOSIS.-H. Howard, R. A. -"flere et meminisse relictum est."

The character, expression, and tone of colour are in strict union with the subject; and, if we may be allowed the term, we scarcely ever recollect to have seen depicted, forms more spiritualized. There is a delicacy, a beauty, a thinness, which can belong only to the shadowy beings of another state---a diaphonous splendour which marks it for the state of the blessed. The obscurity which contrasts this bright and mournful vision appertains to that world which the poet compares to

a broken reed at best,

And oft a spear, on whose sharp point Peace bleeds,
And Hope expires.-

The allegory is exceedingly well imagined.
The centre figure of the admired princess
whose loss Britain has so affectionately de-
plored, bears a strong resemblance to her
mortal beauty, exalted into beatific lovel-
ness.

The maternal feeling is exquisitely expressed. The idea of Hope expiring, wit the wreath prepayed for another consummation instead of that dreadful event which Heaven in its inscrutable wisdom had or

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IN TWO LETTERS FROM A HAMBURGH GENTLEMAN TO HIS FRIEND IN THAT CITY.

Letter I.

IT T was already fifty days after our when excessively heated on a sultry departure from Cadiz, when I as day, went into the ice cellar, and inusual left my cabin before day-break cautiously took so large a quantity of to enjoy the fresh air on deck. I had ice that both of them lost their lives on sat about a quarter of an hour at the the spot. officers' table, when the Lieutenant on duty suddenly leaped on deck, crying out Tierra! Tierra! (Land! Land!) The Captain, officers, and passengers left their hammocks in great haste, and came on deck half dressed to look on this happy discovery. As it was scarcely twilight, we could see little or nothing; but there soon opened before our eyes a great panorama with a long chain of high mountains, and a prodigious conical Glacier in the foreground, the brilliant icy summit of which delighted us all. It was the Pico of Orizaba, which seemed to raise its head far above the clouds. "There on the summit I shall stand to-morrow," said I to myself; but alas! now I must say that I did not even attempt to ascend it, as a nearer view showed that it was impossible. The Pico however delighted me, during my stay in Vera Cruz, in more ways than one. I had chosen my residence so, that by ineans of the great French windows, which are there very common, and lead to the balcony, I had it constantly before my eyes. I was also continually refreshed by the ice from it, with which I cooled my drink; a very great luxury in the oppressive heat of that country. But great precaution is necessary in the enjoyment of this treat, for I myself once saw two Creoles who,

In all the towns in New Spain where ice can be had, in the hot seasons, the Neveros (ice-sellers) are in the streets from nine o'clock in the morning till late at night, with frozen drinks to sell, incessantly crying Tamarinto, Limon y Leche! Half-frozen milk, lemonade, &c. a similar beverage, made of sugar and tamarinds, are the most common refreshments, which they carry on their backs in a tin pail with a close lid, divided by partitions, and which is placed in a wooden vessel, and surrounded with a mixture of ice and salt; and every time that they sell their haif but not quite frozen drink, they turn their tin pail about in the ice which surrounds it, to increase the effect of the cold. Besides such iced drinks, the dessert at a good table, or at least on entertainments and feast days, consists partly of frozen fruits, which by particular pressure and innoxious colours, are so admirably imitated, that if one sees them at the smallest distance one cannot distinguish them from nature. It is to be supposed that they use for this purpose the juice of the fruit itself mixed with more or less sugar. On the voyage from Vera Cruz to Mexico, I was surprised with the agreeable sight of two other Glaciers, which lie between Puebla and Mexico, and which give the whole country an inexpressibly

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