those
charming little scenes which form the peculiar characteristic of
woodland scenery. The cottages half hid by the profusion of
fruit-trees, or embosomed in the luxuriant woods with which they are
everywhere surrounded, increase the interest which the scenery itself is
fitted to produce: they combine the delightful idea of the peasant's
enjoyment with the beauty of the spot on which his dwelling is placed;
and awaken, in the midst of the boundless luxuriance of vegetable
nature, those deeper feelings of moral delight, which spring from the
contemplation of human happiness.

To a northern eye, there is nothing so delightful as this luxuriance of
vegetation, which rises amidst the warmth of southern climates. The
sterile rocks and rugged mountains of northern regions exhibit nature in
her native rudeness, her features bear a harsher aspect, and her forms
are expressive of more melancholy feeling; but under the genial warmth
of a southern sun, she is arrayed in a robe of softer colours, and beams
with the expression of a gentler character. She there appears surrounded
by the luxuriance of vegetable life: she pours forth her bounty with a
profusion which the partizans of utility would call prodigality, and
covers the earth with a splendour of beauty, which serves no other
purpose than to minister to the delight of human existence. Amidst the
riches with which man is surrounded, his destiny appears happier than
in more desolate situations; we forget the sufferings of the individual
in the profusion of beauty with which he is surrounded; and impute to
the inhabitants of these delightful regions, those feelings of happiness
which spring in our own minds from the contemplation of the scenery in
which they are placed.

The effect of the charming scenery on the heights of Belleville is much
increased by the distant objects which terminate some parts of the view.
To the east, the high and gloomy towers of Vincennes rise over the
beautiful woods with which the sides of the hill are adorned, and give
an air of solemnity to the scene, arising from the remembrance of the
tragic events of which it was the theatre. To the south, the domes and
spires of Paris can occasionally be discovered through the openings of
the wood with which the foreground is enriched, and present the capital
at that pleasing distance, when the minuter part of the buildings are
concealed, when its prominent features alone are displayed, and the
whole is sof