The radiant splendor of the sunny months, now gives place to the sober tints of russet autumn.

A pastoral writer observes,-Autumn, yet with her hand grasped in the feeble clasp of Summer, as if the latter were loth to depart, still retains much green hanging about the woods, and much blue and sunshine about the sky and earth. But the leaves are rustling in the forest paths, the harvest-fields are silent, and the heavy fruit that bows down the branches, proclaims that the labor of Summer is endedthat her yellow-robed sister has come to gather in and garner the rich treasures she has left behind.

Hope, who looked with a cheerful countenance upon the landscape of Spring, has departed. Instead of watching each green and flowery object, day by day, as it budded and blossomed, we now see only the traces of slow and sure decay, the green fading, bit by bit, until the leaves become like the skeleton wings of an insect, the wind blowing through those places which were before marked with azure, and crimson, and gold. The sun himself seems growing older; he rises later from his bed in the morning, and returns to rest earlier in the evening, and seems not to have that strength which he possessed when he rose in the youthful vigor of Spring, and the bright and cheerful manhood of Summer; for his golden eyes seem clouded, and his breath thick and heavy, as he struggles through the surrounding fog. All these are marks of the seasons, telling us that the year is growing gray, and slowly tottering towards the darkness and grave-like silence of Winter.

"A moral character is attached to autumnal scenes-the leaves falling like our years, the flowers fading like our hours, the clouds fleeting like our illusions, the light diminishing like our intelligence, the sun growing colder like our affections, the rivers becoming frozen like our lives-all bear secret relations to our destinies." *

The name SEPTEMBER being derived from Septem, seven, indi

Chateaubriand.

cates its order in the Roman Calendar, prior to the Julian reform. The zodiacal sign is the constellation of Libra, or the Balance; because when the sun entered this asterism it seemed to hold the days and nights in equilibrio, giving the same proportion of light as darkness to the inhabitants of all parts of the globe. It was called gerst-monath by the Saxons; gerst signifying barley, which ripens in this month.

The transition from autumnal richness to the desolation of winter is gradual, almost imperceptible, like our own advancing years. Miller the poet writes about it.

Forest scenery never looks so beautiful as in Autumn. It is then that nature seems to have exhausted all the fantastic colors of her palette, and to have scattered her richest red, brown, yellow, and purple, upon the foliage. Every gust of wind that now blows, brings down thousands of golden-colored acorns, that come pattering like little feet among the fallen leaves, leaving empty their smooth, round, hollow cups, from which the old poets in their fables framed the drinking vessels of the fairies.

Hood's ode to Autumn is a gem-we cite a passage from

it :

Where are the blossoms of summer?—In the West,
Blushing their last to the last sunny hours,

Where the mild Eve by sudden Night is prest

Like tearful Proserpine, snatched from her flowers,

To a most gloomy breast.

Where is the pride of Summer-the green prime-
The many, many leaves of all twinkling ?-Three
On the mossed Elm: three on the naked lime
Trembling-and one upon the old oak tree!
Where is the Dryad's immortality?—
Gone into mournful cypress and dark yew,
Or wearing the long gloomy winter through
In the smooth holly's green eternity.

We add another apostrophe in prose, from an unknown pen :

"Like some richly illuminated manuscript of cloistered art, the wonder book of Nature is spreading out its autumn pages in all their wonted brilliancy of mingled coloring; every mountain is a swelling mound of jewelled lustre, and every vale of woodland a blending of rich rainbow tints, over which a bright sun-warmed haze is spread, just as the old missal painters used to canopy the heads of saints and apostles with a halo of golden light. The hoar-frost covers the meadows in the early morning, and lies in crisp, sparkling wreathes upon the fences and barn-roofs, while overhead, a sky of the deepest blue is beginning to soften under the sunshine. Not a leaf quivers, and the pale cottage smoke curls up in a straight, unwavering column through the frosty air, while cloudlets of mist rest lingeringly on the lake, or creep lazily up the hill-sides.

"There is exhilaration in the air, and a new life in the wind that comes careering from the northwest, bearing frost on its wings, and brightness to the autumn woods. The farmer is early afield, with his cheery call, as he guides his oxen to the late harvesting. The maize fields display their tent-like rows, with garniture of yellow pumpkins scattered between ; and the buckwheat patches, no longer yielding their "honied fragrance," are falling before the quick-swinging cradle, and lie like red spots upon the landscape. The orchards are brimming with rosy fruit, and the chestnut burs are showering down their treasures in the woods. Plenty seems to reign, and the fullness of the year has put its stamp of gladness upon all."

"A mellow richness on the clustered trees;
And, from a beaker full of richest dyes,
Pouring new glory on the autumn woods,
And dipping in warm light the pillared clouds ;
Morn, on the mountain, like a summer bird,
Lifts up her purple wing; and in the vales
The gentle wind, a sweet and passionate rover,
Kisses the blushing leaves and stirs up life
Within the solemn woods of ash deep crimsoned,

And silver beech, the maple yellow leaved-
Where Autumn, like a faint old man, sits down
By the wayside aweary. Through the trees
The golden robin moves; the purple finch,
That on wild cherry and red cedar feeds,
A winter bird, comes with its plaintive whistle
And pecks by the wych-hazel; while aloft

From cottage roofs the warbling bluebird sings."*

OCTOBER is from the Latin octo, eight; with the Saxon it was styled winterfyllith-winter-beginning.

The principal Saints' days of this month are those of St. Dennis-who, according to the legend, walked two miles with his head in his hand, after it had been cut off-and of St. Crispin, the patron of the shoe-making fraternity.

One of the Comic Almanacs, attempts the facetious on this month, in the following playful stanzas :

The sum of Summer is cast at last,

And carried to Wintry season,

And the frightened leaves are leaving us fast,
If they stayed it would be high trees-on.

The sheep exposed to the rain and drift,
Are left to all sorts of wethers,

And the ragged young birds must make a shift
Until they can get new feathers.

In noting the chronicles of Time, we find

"The pale, descending year, yet pleasing still,"

for although the sere and yellow leaf now greets us, where, a short time since, all was verdant, and nature has doffed her gay attire, yet is there great beauty even in the blanched and frozen landscape, which dull spirits deem all dreary, desolate, and dead.

* Longfellow.

"Come, bleak NOVEMBER, in thy wildness come :

Thy mornings clothed in rime, thy evenings chill;
E'en these have power to tempt me from my home,
E'en these have beauty to delight me still.

Though Nature lingers in her mourning weeds,
And wails the dying year in gusty blast,

Still added beauty to the last proceeds,

And wildness triumphs when her bloom is past."

Nor is Shelley's Dirge less touchingly beautiful :

The warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing,
The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying,
And the year

On the earth, her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead,

Is lying.

Come months, come away,

From November to May,

In your saddest array;
Follow the bier

Of the dead, cold year,

And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre.

The chill rain is falling, the nipt worm is crawling,
The rivers are swelling, the thunder is knelling

For the year;

The blythe swallows are flown, and the lizards each gone
To his dwelling.

Come months, come away.

Put on white, black and grey,

Let your light sisters play

Ye follow the bier

Of the dead cold year.

And make her grave green with tear on tear.

The following beautiful passage, by Washington Irving, might almost make a doleful day cheerful :

"And here let me say a word in favor of those vicissitudes of our climate which are too often made the subjects of exclusive repining. If they annoy us occasionally by changes from