lds.'

A summer evening in the country is associated in most minds with images of
mirth and joy. Thus Goldsmith has described it:

'Sweet was the sound, when oft at evening's close,
Up yonder hill the village murmur rose;
There as I passed with careless steps, and slow,
The mingling notes came softened from below;
The swain responsive as the milk-maid sung,
The sober herd that lowed to meet their young;
The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool,
The playful children just let loose from school,
The watch-dog's voice, that bayed the whisp'ring wind,
And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind.'

With what consummate skill, if indeed it be not rather the instinct of the
poet, has Gray avoided all mention of those objects which might awaken
associations discordant with the mood of his own mind! Each epithet is
full of a plaintive melancholy. There is not one that does not contribute
something to the effect; not one that can be omitted; not one that can be
altered for the better. Yet there is scarcely one that is descriptive of
any quality actually existing in its subject. The fitness of each is to be
felt rather than seen.

In the selection of those circumstances and objects which Gray has
enumerated, he was governed by the effect which each had upon his own
feelings. He looked upon nature in the reflected light of his own heart.
He was mournful in view of the destiny of man; and wandering amidst the
graves of the lowly and obscure, he saw all the external world colored
with the hue of his own sad thoughts. The melancholy spirit within him
transformed all things without into its own likeness. His imagination,
darting hither and thither, and governed in its flight by laws too subtle
and delicate to be analyzed, reposed itself for a moment amidst the gloom
of the historical associations that cluster around the curfew, hovered
over the lowing herd, and followed the ploughman as he homeward plods his
weary way. Goldsmith, recalling the scenes where he had spent many happy
hours, looks upon nature under a far different aspect. Every thing to him
is gay and joyous. He hears not the hollow tones of the curfew, nor the
drowsy tinklings that lull the distant folds. He sees not the wearied
ploughman, caring for nought but to forget his toils in the sweet oblivion
of sleep. He hears but the song of the milk-maid, and the soft response of
her rustic lover; the watchdog's voice, and the loud laugh of the happ