ont, seemingly part of an old gravel-pit, down which winds
a break-neck path, lost at yonder turning. Beneath us, a level flat, where
the sullen verdure of the vegetation betrays the marshy, reedy, sterile
character of the soil. Pools of water, here and there set amidst the
swampy green, reflect the dark and watery clouds that are scudding above
them. The lavender, the water-lily, the mallow, the fern, the fox-glove,
luxuriate here; abundant food for botany, but not exactly in the place one
would choose for botanizing--particularly, as is the case this moment,
within an hour of sundown. Beyond the flat, the traces of a range of low
hills, their outline at present lost in rain. Overhead, a spongy sky,
darkening into a lurid gloom to the right; for there the laden
thunder-clouds are about to discharge their freight; and right underneath,
in the middle distance, an unhappy windmill, which has shortened sail
during the preparatory blast, stands glimmering like a ghost through the
gloom, obviously on the eve of the deluge. What may be the probable fate
of the miller and his men in this conjuncture, humanity, of course,
declines to contemplate; but, turning towards the left, sees the sun
struggling through the opening eyelids of the clouds, the leaden hue of
the sky on the right breaking off into a lustrous haze, and a rainbow
growing into form and colour, which, as it spans the dripping landscape
from east to west, gives token of a goodly day to-morrow.

These are but a few of the combinations which even this limited range of
scenery evidently presented to the eye and fancy of a man like Constable;
nor is it wonderful, after all, that to such materials, unpretending as
they seem, an artist embued with a genuine love of nature should have
succeeded in imparting a peculiar charm, and a never-ending freshness and
variety. Amidst scenes of the sane tranquil cast did Hobbima and Waterlo
find the subjects of those soothing pictures, the spell of which is
acknowledged equally by the profound student of art and the simple admirer
of nature. Scenes not materially different in their character did Ruysdael
envelope in grandeur, depicting, as Constable expresses it in one of his
lectures, "those solemn days peculiar to his country, and to ours, when,
without storm, large rolling clouds scarcely permit a ray of sunlight to
break the shades of the forest." And amidst the selfsame scenes--the same
forest-lanes, and brooks, and woods, and wat