heart,
was never more finely expressed than it is here.

The account which follows of the employments of the Polar night--of
the journeys of the natives by moonlight, drawn by rein-deer, and of the
return of spring in Lapland--

"Where pure Niemi's fairy mountains rise,
And fring'd with roses Tenglio rolls his stream,"

is equally picturesque and striking in a different way. The traveller
lost in the snow, is a well-known and admirable dramatic episode. I
prefer, however, giving one example of our author's skill in painting
common domestic scenery, as it will bear a more immediate comparison
with the style of some later writers on such subjects. It is of little
consequence what passage we take. The following description of the
first setting in of winter is, perhaps, as pleasing as any.

"Through the hush'd air the whitening shower descends,
At first thin wav'ring, till at last the flakes
Fall broad and wide, and fast, dimming the day
With a continual flow. The cherish'd fields
Put on their winter-robe of purest white:
'Tis brightness all, save where the new snow melts
Along the mazy current. Low the woods
Bow their hoar head; and ere the languid Sun,
Faint, from the West emits his ev'ning ray,
Earth's universal face, deep hid, and chill,
Is one wide dazzling waste, that buries wide
The works of man. Drooping, the lab'rer-ox
Stands cover'd o'er with snow, and then demands
The fruit of all his toil. The fowls of heav'n,
Tam'd by the cruel season, crowd around
The winnowing store, and claim the little boon
Which Providence assigns them. One alone,
The red-breast, sacred to the household Gods,
Wisely regardful of the embroiling sky,
In joyless fields and thorny thickets leaves
His shivering mates, and pays to trusted man
His annual visit. Half-afraid, he first
Against the window beats; then, brisk, alights
On the warm hearth; then hopping o'er the floor,
Eyes all the smiling family askance,
And pecks, and starts, and wonders where he is:
Till more familiar grown, the table-crumbs
Attract his slender feet. The foodless wilds
Pour forth their brown inhabitants. The hare,
Though timorous of heart, and hard beset
By death in various forms, dark snares and dogs,
And more unpitying men, the garden seeks,