"The gayest, happiest attitudes of things,"
nor to allow their social blaze to be darkened by such narrow conceits;
and for a picture of this portion of mankind, we quote Mr. Bucke's
_Harmonies_:--
"Awed by the progress of time, winter, ushered into existence by
the howling of storms, and the rushing of impetuous torrents, and
contemplating, with the satisfaction of a giant, the ruins of the year,
still affords ample food for enjoyments, which the vulgar never dream
of, if sympathy and association diffuse their attractive spells around
us! In the bosom of retirement, how delightful is it to feel exempt from
the mean intrigues, the endless difficulties and tumults, which active
life ensures, and which retirement enables us so well to contemplate
through the telescope of recollection. When seated by the cheerful
fire among friends, loving and beloved, our hopes, our wishes, and our
pleasures are concentrated; the soul seems imparadised in an enchanted
circle; and the world, vain, idle, and offensive as it is, presents
nothing to the judgment, and little to the imagination, that can induce
the enlightened or the good to regret, that the knowledge they possess
of it is chiefly from the report of others, or from the tumultuous
murmur, which from a distance invades the tranquillity of their retreat,
and operates as a discord in a soft sonata. These are the moments which
affect us more than all the harmony of Italy, or all the melody of
Scotland--moments, in which we appear almost to emulate the gods
in happiness."
"Change," in the quaint language of Feltham, "is the great lord of
the universe, and Time is the agent which brings all things under his
dominion." This has been demonstrated through our past calendar of
monthly characteristics; to which are subjoined, from a still more
quaint authority than Feltham, said to be printed in the reign of
Henry VII., in a Sarum black-letter missal: