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 make 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. sun. 3. The incidental beauties which the meridian sun exhibits *Pannonia was the ancient name of Austria, Hungary, Sclavonia, and other parts of the Austrian empire. 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 it 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 hemisphere 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. LESSON CXLIV. Taste. AKENSIDE.* 1. WHAT, then, is taste, but these internal powers To each fine impulse? a discerning sense 2. This, nor gems nor stores of gold, He, mighty parent! wise and just in all, 3. Ask the swain Who journeys homeward from a summer day's 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, 4. But though Heaven In every breast hath sown these early seeds * Born 1721; died 1770. 5. Nor yet will every soil with equal stores Repay the tiller's labor; or attend His will, obsequious, whether to produce 6. Hence, when lightning fires The arch of heaven, and thunders rock the ground, - And ocean, groaning from his lowest bed, The nations tremble, Shakspeare looks abroad 7. But Waller longs All on the margin of some flowery stream 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 "to To charm the enlivened soul! 9. What though not all Of mortal offspring can attain the heights 10. His the city's pomp, The rural honors his. Whate'er adorns The princely dome, the column and the arch, 11. For him the spring Distills her dews, and from the silken gem 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, This fair-inspired delight: her tempered powers if to gaze A chaster, milder, more attractive mien. The world's foundations, if to these the mind 15. Would the forms Of servile custom cramp her generous power; 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 |