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peasant, who is thus enabled to stock his little plot of ground! The wax and honey, which his bees produce will generally clear his rent; four rabbits are calculated to supply a dish of meat every three days in the year-they are kept at a trifling expense, and may even be fatted with roots, good green food, and hay. The porcine race are equally productive, and the consumption and demand keep pace together. The ease, too, with which these animals are brought up and fed, render them peculiarly advantageous to the lower orders of society. Nor is it too much to assert, that in our own village, and among the scattered hamlets and cottages, that give animation to the landscape, there are few, who might not contrive, with good management, to keep a pig, and thus to obtain a cheap and nutritious diet, independent of the profit, that accrues from the lard and fat. In ancient times, our woods were peopled with this ungainly race; but now, that the labours of the shepherd or husbandman have superseded those of the forester and swineherd, the peasant is allowed to turn his sheep upon the common; as in olden times, the villain sent forth his pigs to banquet in those now denuded districts, once tracts of what the popular poetry of the country denominated the " good green wood."

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AUGUST.

"Eternal Power! from whom all blessings flow,
Teach me still more to wonder, more to know:
Seed-time and harvest let me see again;

Wander the leaf-strewn wood, the autumn plain :
Let the first flower, corn-waving field, plain, tree,
Here round my home, still lift my thoughts to Thee;
And let me ever, 'midst thy bounties, raise
An humble note of thankfulness and praise."

BLOOMFIELD.

A RICH field of waving corn affords, at this season of the year, the most agreeable spectacle in nature. We have one at a small distance from the village, of singular and romantic beauty. It is situated on the declivity of a gently swelling hill, crowned with a deep beech-wood; on the left appears a fine extensive sweep of richly cultivated country, with Ostorius's ancient mount rising like a beacon in the centre; to the right, extends one of those sunny copses that seem the haunt, and shelter of every dappled insect, and bright blossoming flower, skirted by a narrow winding path, that leads into

a deep thicket, through the waving branches of which, when the wind is high, you may discover the neat white cottages of a neighbouring hamlet : a low hedge, entwined with honeysuckles, ladiesseals, and woody-nightshade, forms the eastern boundary; below this, a green field slopes into the vale, where a little river shines out at intervals, in its shady course, and an ancient castellated farm-house tells of other days, when the peasant drove his hurried cattle into the inner-court at night, and belted knights and fierce retainers "rode that proper place about." Green sloping fields rise rapidly from the valley, and afford an open view of a rich pasture, and corn country, studded with farm-houses, cottages, and hamlets. In one, the waving corn is falling before the reaper's hand, while his wife is binding up the sheaves, and the children dance around, crowned with garlands of cockles* and wild poppies; in another, the compact sheaves stand ready for the farmer's barn.

Even the pathway that leads through the field presents an appearance peculiar to itself. Heavy waggons, and the tread of horses' feet, when employed in drawing timber, have worn it below the surface, but the banks are mantled with grass and

* Agrostemma, from aypos, a field; and σтeμμa, a coronet; as if the coronet of the field.

flowers, where you may hear the grasshopper sing welcome, as you pass. There grows self-heal, and feverfew, wild-baum, and many other "gently breathing plants," with which grave herbalists and housewives cured, in other days, the ailments of their neighbours. There, too, spring Timothy grass and wild Basil; herbs Robert, Paris, Bennet, Christopher, and Gerard, sweet Marjoram, Cicely, and William; names, by which the good old simplers commemorated worth or friendship; or the neighbouring villagers loved to associate with the memory of benefactors, whose skill or kindness might be shadowed forth in the virtues of their favourite plants. The benefactors are departed; the herbalists and grateful villagers are gone; the memory of their loves and friendships, of their gentle virtues, who they were, and why such names were given, are also past; but the botanist likes to look on these memorial plants, and even the village matron, when she names or gathers them, associates, though she cannot tell you why, a feeling with those flowers, which no other in the field or hedge-row can elicit.

Along that bank, also, grow the corn SOWthistle, (sonchus arvensis,) so dear to weary labourers, because it follows the sun's course, and folds up its large golden petals at noon; the mouse-ear hawkweed, (hieracium pilosella,) that

announces their breakfast hour; the scarlet pimpernel (anagallis arvensis,) when their work is done; the yellow goat's-beard, (tragopogon pratensis,) closing between nine and ten; the strongscented lettuce, (lactuca virosa,) opening at seven. The weary ploughman often leaves his horses to look on these time-pieces of Nature's making, and harvest-men love to sit by them, when they rest from their work at noon.

Linnæus formed from such flowers, an Horologium Floræ, or botanical clock.

"'Twas a lovely thought to mark the hours,
As they floated in light away,

By the opening and the folding flowers,
That laugh to the summer's day.

"Thus had each moment its own rich hue,
And its graceful cup or bell;

In whose coloured vase might sleep the dew,
Like a pearl in an ocean shell.

"To such sweet signs might the time have flow'd
In a golden current on,

Ere from the garden, man's first abode,
The glorious guests were gone.

"Yet is not life, in its real flight,

Mark'd thus-even thus-on earth,

By the closing of one hope's delight,
And another's gentle birth?

"Oh! let us live, so that flower by flower,
Shutting in turn, may leave

A lingerer still for the sun-set hour,

A charm for the faded eve."

MRS. HEMANS.

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