ver
surely were primroses so richly set, and never did primroses better
deserve such a setting. There they are of their own lovely yellow, the
hue to which they have given a name, the exact tint of the butterfly
that overhangs them (the first I have seen this year! can spring really
be coming at last?)--sprinkled here and there with tufts of a reddish
purple, and others of the purest white, as some accident of soil affects
that strange and inscrutable operation of nature, the colouring of
flowers. Oh how fragrant they are, and how pleasant it is to sit in this
sheltered copse, listening to the fine creaking of the wind amongst the
branches, the most unearthly of sounds, with this gay tapestry under our
feet, and the wood-pigeons flitting from tree to tree, and mixing the
deep note of love with the elemental music.

Yes! spring is coming. Wood-pigeons, butterflies, and sweet flowers, all
give token of the sweetest of the seasons. Spring is coming. The hazel
stalks are swelling and putting forth their pale tassels, the satin
palms with their honeyed odours are out on the willow, and the last
lingering winter berries are dropping from the hawthorn, and making way
for the bright and blossomy leaves.

THE WOOD.

April 20th.--Spring is actually come now, with the fulness and almost
the suddenness of a northern summer. To-day is completely April;--clouds
and sunshine, wind and showers; blossoms on the trees, grass in the
fields, swallows by the ponds, snakes in the hedgerows, nightingales in
the thickets, and cuckoos everywhere. My young friend Ellen G. is going
with me this evening to gather wood-sorrel. She never saw that most
elegant plant, and is so delicate an artist that the introduction will
be a mutual benefit; Ellen will gain a subject worthy of her pencil,
and the pretty weed will live;--no small favour to a flower almost as
transitory as the gum cistus: duration is the only charm which it
wants, and that Ellen will give it. The weather is, to be sure, a little
threatening, but we are not people to mind the weather when we have an
object in view; we shall certainly go in quest of the wood-sorrel, and
will take May, provided we can escape May's followers; for since the
adventure of the lamb, Saladin has had an affair with a gander, furious
in defence of his goslings, in which rencontre the gander came off
conqueror; and as geese abound in the wood to which we are going (called
by the country people the Pinge)