but if he diverts from his path, and snatches handfuls from the wanton vineyards, and remembers the lasciviousness of his unwholesome food that pleased his childish palate, then he grows sick again, and hungry after unwholesome diet, and longs for the apples of Sodom.

6. The Pannonian * bears, when they have clasped a dart in the region of their liver, wheel themselves upon the wound, and with anger and malicious revenge strike the deadly barb deeper, and cannot be quit from that fatal steel, but in flying bear along that which themselves inake the instrument of a more hasty death.

7. So is every vicious person struck with a deadly wound, and his own hands force it into the entertainments of the heart; and because it is painful to draw it forth by a sharp and salutary repentance, he still rolls and turns upon his wound, and carries his death in his bowels, where it first entered by choice, and then dwelt by love, and at last shall finish the tragedy by divine judgments and an unalterable decree.

LESSON CXLIII. The Rising and the Setting Sun. — GILPIN. 1. LANDSCAPE painters, in general, pay too little attention to the discriminations of morning and evening. We are often at a loss to distinguish in pictures the rising from the setting sun, though their characters are very different both in the lights and shadows.

2. The ruddy lights, indeed, of the evening are more easily distinguished; but it is not perhaps always sufficiently observed that the shadows of the evening are much less opaque than those of the morning. They may be brightened, perhaps, by the numberless rays floating in the atmosphere, which are incessantly reverberated in every direction, and may continue in action after the sun is set; whereas in the morning the rays of the preceding day having subsided, no object receives any light but from the immediate luster of the

Whatever becomes of the theory, the fact, I believe, is well ascertained.

1

are much fewer than those of the rising sun.

In summer, when he rides high at noon, and sheds his perpendicular ray, all is illumination ; there is no shadow to balance such a glare of light, no contrast to oppose it.

4. The judicious artist, therefore, rarely represents his objects under a vertical sun. And yet no species of landscape bears so well as the scenes of the forest. The tuftings of the trees, the recesses among them, and the lighter foliage hanging over the darker, may all have an effect under a meridian sun.

5. I speak chiefly, however, of the internal scenes of the forest, which bear such total brightness better than any other, as in them there is generally a natural gloom to balance it. The light obstructed by close intervening trees will rarely predominate; hence the effect is often fine.

6. A strong sunshine striking a wood through some fortunate chasm, and reposing on the tuftings of a clump, just removed from the eye, and strengthened by the deep shadows of the trees behind, appears to great advantage ; especially if some noble tree, standing on the foreground in deep shadow, flings athwart the sky its dark branches, here and there illumined with a splendid touch of light.

7. In an open country, the most fortunate circumstance that attends a meridian sun is cloudy weather, which occasions partial lights. Then it is that the distant forest scene is spread with lengthened gleams, while the other parts of the landscape are in shadow; the tuftings of trees are particularly adapted to catch this effect with advantage ; there is a richness in them, from the strong opposition of light and shade, which is wonderfully fine.

8. A distant forest thus illumined wants only a foreground to make it highly picturesque. As the sun descends, the effect of its illumination becomes stronger. It is a doubt whether the rising or the setting sun is more picturesque. The great beauty of both depends on the contrast between splendor and obscurity.

9. But this contrast is produced by these different incidents in different ways. The grandest effects of the rising sun are produced by the vapors which envelop it; the setting sun rests its glory on the gloom which often accompanies its parting rays.

10. A depth of shadow hanging over the eastern hemi. sphere gives the beams of the setting sun such powerful effect, that, although in fact they are by no means equal to the

splendor of a meridian sun, yet through force of contrast they appear superior. A distant forest scene under this brightened gloom is particularly rich, and glows with double splendor. The verdure of the summer leaf, and the varied tints of the autumnal one, are all lighted up with the most resplendent colors.

1. What, then, is taste, but these internal powers
Active, and strong, and feelingly alive
To each fine impulse ? a discerning sense
Of decent and sublime, with quick disgust
From things deformed or disarranged, or gross
In species?

2. This, nor gems nor stores of gold,
Nor purple state, nor culture, can bestow;
But God alone, when first his active hand
Imprints the secret bias of the soul.
He, mighty parent! wise and just in all,
Free as the vital breeze or light of heaven,
Reveals the charms of Nature.

3. Ask the swain
Who journeys homeward from a summer day's
Long labor, why, forgetful of his toils
And due repose, he loiters to behold
The sunshine gleaming, as through amber clouds,
O'er all the western sky; full soon, I ween,
His rude expression and untutored airs,
Beyond the power of language, will unfold
The form of beauty smiling at his heart,
How lovely! how commanding !

5. Nor yet will every soil with equal stores
Repay the tiller's labor; or attend
His will, obsequious, whether to produce
The olive or the laurel. Different minds
Incline to different objects: one pursues
The vast alone, the wonderful, the wild ;
Another sighs for harmony, and grace,
And gentlest beauty.

6. Hence, when lightning fires
The arch of heaven, and thunders rock the ground, -
When furious whirlwinds rend the howling air,
And ocean, groaning from his lowest bed,
Heaves his tempestuous billows to the sky,
Amid the mighty uproar, while below
The nations tremble, Shakspeare looks abroad
From some high cliff superior, and enjoys
The elemental war.

7. But Waller longs
All on the margin of some flowery stream
To spread his careless limbs amid the cool
Of plantain shades, and to the listening deer
The tale of slighted vows and love's disdain
Resound soft-warbling all the live-long day:
Consenting Zephyr sighs; the weeping rill
Joins in his plaint, melodious; mute the groves,
And hill and dale with all their echoes mourn.
Such and so various are the tastes of men.

8. O blest of heaven! whom not the languid songs
Of luxury, the siren ! not the bribes
Of sordid wealth, nor all the gaudy spoils
Of pageant honor, can seduce to leave
Those ever-blooming sweets, which from the stry
Of Nature fair Imagination culls
To charm the enlivened soul !

The princely dome, the column and the arch,
The breathing marbles and the sculptured gold,
Beyond the proud possessor's narrow claim,
His tuneful breast enjoys.

11. For him the spring
Distills her dews, and from the silken gem
Its lucid leaves unfolds : for him the hand
Of autumn tinges every fertile branch
With blooming gold and blushes like the morn.

12. Each passing hour sheds tribute from her wings;
And still new beauties meet his lonely walk,
And loves unfelt attract him. Not a breeze
Flies o'er the meadow, not a cloud imbibes
The setting sun's effulgence, not a strain
From all the tenants of the warbling shade
Ascends, but whence his bosom can partake
Fresh pleasure, unreproved.

13. Nor thence partakes
Fresh pleasure only: for the attentive mind,
By this harmonious action on her powers,
Becomes herself harmonious : wont so oft
In outward things to meditate the charm
Of sacred order, soon she seeks at home
To find a kindred order, to exert
Within herself this elegance of love,
This fair-inspired delight : her tempered powers
Refine at length, and every passion wears
A chaster, milder, more attractive

14. But if to ampler prospects, — if to gaze
On Nature's form, where, negligent of all
These lesser graces, she assumes the port
Of that eternal majesty that weighed
The world's foundations, - if to these the mind
Exalts her daring eye, then mightier far
Will be the change, and nobler.

15. Would the forms Of servile custom cramp

her

generous power ; Would sordid policies, the barbarous growth Of ignorance and rapine, bow her down

To tame pursuits, to indolence and fear?
Lo! she appeals to Nature, to the winds
And rolling waves, the sun's unwearied course,
The elements and seasons : all declare
For what the eternal Maker has ordained
The powers of man.