Dat Clemens hyemem, dat Petrus ver cathedratus ;
Astuat Urbanus, autumnat Bartholomæus.-Lydiat.

The continual succession of Seasons in the human life, by daily presenting to us new scenes, render it agreeable, and, like those of the year, afford us delights by their change, which the choicest of them could not give us by their continuance. In the Spring of life, the gilding of the sunshine, the verdure of the fields, and the variegated paintings of the sky, are so exquisite in the eyes of infants, at their first looking abroad into a new world, as nothing, perhaps, afterwards can equal : the heat and vigour of the succeeding Summer of youth ripens for us new pleasures, the blooming maid, the nightly revel, and the jovial chase : the serene Autumn of complete manhood feasts us with the golden harvest of our worldly pursuits; nor is the hoary Winter of old age destitute of its peculiar comforts and enjoyments, of which the recollection and relation of those past, are, perhaps, none of the least : and, at last, Death opens to us a new prospect, from whence we shall, probably, look back upon the diversions and occupations of this world, with the same contempt we do now upon our tops and hobbyhorses, and with the same surprise, that they could ever so much entertain or engage us.-Jenyns.

Behind the glowing wheels

Six jocund Seasons dance,
A radiant month in each quick-shifting hand;

Alternate they advance,

While buxom Nature feels
The grateful changes of the frolick band :

Each Month a constellation fair,

Knit in youthful wedlock, holds ;
And o'er each bed a varied sun unfolds,
Lest one vast blaze our visual force impair,

A canopy of woven air.--Sir Wm. Jones.

O Winter, ruler of th’inverted year,
Thy scatter'd hair with sleet like ashes fill'd,
Thy breath congeal'd upon thy lips, thy cheeks
Friug'd with a beard made white with other snows
Than those of age, thy forehead wrapp'd in clouds,
A leafless branch thy sceptre, and thy throne
A sliding car, indebted to no wheels,
But urg'd by storms along it's slipp’ry way,
I crown thee king of intimate delights,
Fireside enjoyments, home-born happiness,
And all the comforts that the lowly roof
Of undisturb'd Retirement, and the hours
Of long uninterrupted ev'ning, know.---Cowper,

Cauld blew the bitter-biting north
Upon thy early humble birth ;
Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth

Amid the storm,
Scarce rear'd above the parent earth

Thy tender form.
There, in thy scanty mantle clad,
Thy snawie bosom sunward spread,
Thou lifts' thy unassuming head.--The Daisy. Burns.

Under the Protection of Juno.

Annue, purpureâque veni perlucida palla:

Ter tibi fit libo, ter, dea casta, mero.--Tibullus.

HAIL, wedded love! mysterious law, true source
Of human offspring, sole propriety
In Paradise of all things common else.
By thee adulterous lust was driven from men
Among the bestial herds to range ; by thee,
Founded in reason, loyal, just, and pure,
Relations dear, and all the charities
Of father, son, and brother, first were known.
Perpetual fountain of domestic sweets,
Whose bed is undefiled, and chaste pronounced,
Present, or past, as saints and patriarchs used.
Here love his golden shafts employs, here lights
His constant lamp, and waves his purple wings,
Reigns here and revels; not in the bought smile
Of harlots, loveless, joyless, unendeared,
Casual fruition ; nor in court-amours,
Mixed dance, or wanton mask, or midnight ball,
Or serenade, which the starved lover sings
To his proud fair, best quitted with disdain. Milton.

Mine eye yet fixed on Heaven's unchanging clime,
Long had I listened, free from mortal fear,

With inward stillness, and submitted mind;

When lo ! its folds far waving on the wind, I saw the train of the DEPARTING YEAR!

Starting from my silent sadness

Then, with no unholy madness, Ere yet the entered cloud foreclosed my sight, I raised the impetuous song, and solemnized his flight.

Coleridge.

Upon an huge great earth-pot steane he stood.-Spenser.

IF then, Young Year! thou need'st must come,
Choose thy attendants well ; for 'tis not thee

We fear, but 'tis thy company :
Let neither Loss of Friends, or Fame, or Liberty,
Nor pining Sickness, nor tormenting Pain,
Nor Sadness, nor uncleanly Poverty,

Be seen among thy train :

Nor let thy livery be
Either black Sin, or gaudy Vanity.--Cowley.

Ask me why I send you here
This sweet Infanta of the year?

Ask me why I send to you
This primrose, thus bepearled with dew?

I will whisper to your ears,
The sweets of love are mixed with tears.

Ask me why this flower doth shew
So yellow-green, and sickly too ?

Ask me why the stalk is weak
And bending, yet it doth not break?

I will answer, these discover
What fainting hopes are in a lover.

The Primrose.--Hesperides.

The shepherds on the lawn,

Or e'er the point of dawn,
Sat simply chatting in a rustic row;
Full little thought they then,

That the mighty Pan
Was kindly come to live with them below;

Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep,
Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep.

Christmas Ode.