The Naturalist's Diary

For SEPTEMBER 1818.

The cooling breezes sweep the evening lawn, Though still the vigorous Sun shoots fervent rays Upon the southern cottage, decked with vines. SEPTEMBER is, generally, accounted the finest and most settled month in the year. The mornings and evenings are cool, but possess a delightful freshness, while the middle of the day is pleasantly warm and open.

Still swarm the russet meads with busy life;
On every leaf, on every blade, they weave
A shady covert; thick the spiders hang
Their wily webs, and many a painted fly,
Entangled in the snare tenacious, rues
The murderous fang of the insidious foc.

BIDLAKE.

A morning's walk' at this season is replete with gratification to the admirer of Nature's beauties. What a magnificent phenomenon is every day exhibited in the rising of the Sun! yet how common is the observation, that indolence and the love of sleep prevent a great part of mankind from contemplating this beauteous wonder of the creation! What numbers are there, in high life especially, who prefer a few more hours of sleep to all the pleasures of a morning walk!

This circumstance has been ridiculed with great propriety by Addison, in the Spectator. The unaccountable disposition in mankind to continue awake in the night, and sleep in the sunshine, has made me inquire, whether the same change-has happened to any other animals? For this reason, I desired a friend of mine in the country to let me know whether the lark rises as early as it did formerly, and whether the cock begins to crow at his usual hour? My friend has answered me, That his poultry are

as regular as ever, and that all the birds and the beasts of his neighbourhood keep the same hours that they have observed in the memory of man; and the same which, in all probability, they have kept for these five thousand years.' The same excellent author continues, in a more serious strain, Who would not wonder at this perverted relish of those who are reckoned the most polite part of mankind, that prefer coal and candles to the Sun, and exchange so many cheerful morning hours for the pleasures of midnight revels and debauches? If a man were only to consult his health, he would choose to live his whole time, if possible, in daylight, and to retire out of the world into silence and sleep, while the raw damps and unwholesome vapours fly abroad, without a sun to disperse, moderate, or control them. For my own part, I value an hour in the morning as much as common libertines do an hour at midnight. When I find myself awakened into being, and perceive my life renewed within me, and at the same time see the whole face of Nature recovered out of the dark uncomfortable state in which it lay for several hours, my heart overflows with such secret sentiments of joy and gratitude, as are a kind of implicit praise to the great Author of Nature. The mind, in these early seasons of the day, is so refreshed in all its faculties, and borne up with such new supplies of animal spirits, that she finds herself in a state of youth, especially when she is entertained with the breath of flowers, the melody of birds, the dews that hang upon the plants, and all those other sweets of Nature that are peculiar to the morning. But it is impossible for a man to have this relish of being, this exquisite taste of life, who does not come into the world before it is in all its noise and hurry; who loses the rising of the Sun, the still hour of the day, and, immediately upon his first getting up, plunges himself into the ordinary cares or follies of the world.'

And such are the sentiments of the poet of the Seasons, whose soul was so capable of enjoying, and his genius of describing, the pleasures of the morning:

Falsely luxurious, will not man awake,

And, springing from the bed of sloth, enjoy
The cool, the fragrant, and the silent hour,
To meditation due and sacred song?

For is there aught in sleep can charm the wise?
To lie in dead oblivion, losing half

The fleeting moments of too short a life;

Total extinction of th' enlightened soul!

Or else to feverish vanity alive,

Wildered, and tossing through distempered dreams?
Who would in such a gloomy state remain
Longer than Nature craves? when every muse
And every blooming pleasure wait without,
To bless the wildly-devious morning walk?

But it is not indolence and the love of sleep only that give rise to these observations. Beauty ceases to charm, and magnificence to strike, when the object, however perfect it may be, is become familiar to a mind unaccustomed to reflect on the order and harmony of the creation, and on those wonderful relations between all the objects of it which naturally lead the devout man to the contemplation of a First Cause, the Life, and Soul, and Energy of All. Hence we observe a kind of culpable inattention and indifference, even in those who are most habituated to rural scenes, and who, consequently, must enjoy the most frequent opportunities of admiring and contemplating the works of Nature. Satisfied, for instance, that the Sun enlightens the world, and dispenses the most essential benefits to mankind, they have no solicitude to explore the cause of these wonderful effects. They view, every day, the most glorious object in Nature, without one emotion of grateful pleasure, without one idea or reflection. How different the feelings of the poet, as expressed in these charming lines:

Sweet is the breath of Morn, her rising sweet,
With charm of earliest birds; pleasant the Sun,
When first on this delightful land he spreads

His orient beams on herb, tree, fruit, and flower,
Glist'ring with dew.

MILTON,

It is certain that we nowhere meet with a more glorious or more pleasing show of Nature, than what appears in the heavens at the rising of the Sun. The richest decorations, the most variegated and the most gorgeous scenery, that human fancy can imagine, must vanish into nothing, when compared with a spectacle in which radiance and beauty are so preeminent.

The Morning, in fine, displays to the world a new and magnificent creation. The shades of night had concealed the view and enjoyment of earth and skies. But now the light returns, and we behold all Nature renewed in youth and beauty. We are reminded of Milton's fine description of the creation, when God first commanded the earth to put forth the verdant grass :'

He scarce had said, when the bare earth, till then
Desert and bare, unsightly, unadorned,

Brought forth the tender grass, whose verdure clad
Her universal face with pleasant green;

Then herbs of every leaf, that sudden flowered,
Opening their various colours, and made gay
Her bosom smelling sweet.-

-With high woods the hills were crowned,
With tufts the vallies, and each fountain side
With borders 'long the rivers; that earth now
Seemed like to heaven, a seat where gods might dwell,
Or wander with delight, and love to haunt

Her sacred shades.

Nor is this poetic fiction: the morning landscape is indeed exquisitely beautiful. We behold the mountains crowned, as if by the instantaneous effect of enchantment, with majestic woods; the spreading lawns covered with herds and flocks; the fields ripening into harvest; and the meadows enamelled with flowers, and watered by meandering streams.

The whole horizon looks gay; the scattered clouds assume a vivid variety of hues; the lighter vapours are converted into gold; and every plant and every flower sparkles with orient pearl. In proportion as the day approaches, the spectacle is still more beautiful. By soft progressions of light, Nature at length appears in her utmost perfection. The Sun is rising. A first ray, escaped from the mountain's top, that still conceals the radiant orb from the sight, darts rapidly from one end of the horizon to the other. Successive rays strengthen the first. The face of the Sun is disengaged by degrees, till it looks, at last, in boundless majesty abroad! All Nature rejoices in a delightful renovation of life and vigour. The feathered tribes salute the bright source of day with their melodious notes. Every living creature is in action, and is sensible to new returns of pleasure and new capacities of enjoyment.

Mallet has amplified this pleasing subject with the most beautiful and picturesque imagery :

And now pale glimmering on the verge of heaven,
From east to north in doubtful twilight seen,
A whitening lustre shoots its tender beam;
While shade and silence yet involve the ball.
Now sacred Morn, ascending, smiles serene
A dewy radiance, brightening o'er the world.
Gay daughter of the Air, for ever young,
For ever pleasing! Lo, she onward comes,
In fluid gold and azure loose arrayed,
Sun-tinctured, changeful hues. At her approach,
The western gray of yonder breaking clouds
Slow reddens into flame: the rising mists,
From off the mountain's brow, roll blue away
In curling spires, and open all his woods,
High-waving in the sky; th' uncoloured stream,
Beneath her glowing ray, translucent shines.
Glad Nature feels her thro' her boundless realms
Of life and sense; and calls forth all her sweets,
Fragrance and song. From each unfolding flower
Transpires the balm of life, that Zephyr wafts,
Delicious, on his rosy wing: each bird,
Or high in air, or secret in the shade,
Rejoicing, warbles wild his matin-hymn.