ptions of forest scenery come along so unsought,
and in such easy, quiet, natural touches, that we take in the
impression without once noticing what it is that impresses us. Thus
there is a certain woodland freshness, a glad, free naturalness, that
creeps and steals into the heart before we know it. And the spirit of
the place is upon its inhabitants, its genius within them: we almost
breathe with them the fragrance of the Forest, and listen to "the
melodies of woods and winds and waters," and feel

"The Power, the Beauty, and the Majesty,
That have their haunts in dale, or piny mountain,
Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring."

Even the Court Fool, notwithstanding all the crystallizing process
that has passed upon him, undergoes, as we have seen, a sort of
rejuvenescence of his inner man, so that his wit catches at every turn
the fresh hues and odours of his new whereabout. I am persuaded indeed
that Milton had a special eye to this play in the lines,--

"And sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child,
Warbles his native wood-notes wild."

To all which add, that the kindlier sentiments here seem playing out
in a sort of jubilee. Untied from set purposes and definite aims, the
persons come forth with their hearts already tuned, and so have but to
let off their redundant music. Envy, jealousy, avarice, revenge, all
the passions that afflict and degrade society, they have left in the
city behind them. And they have brought the intelligence and
refinement of the Court without its vanities and vexations; so that
the graces of art and the simplicities of nature meet together in
joyous, loving sisterhood. A serene and mellow atmosphere of thought
encircles and pervades the actors in this drama; as if on purpose to
illustrate how

"One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil, and of good,
Than all the sages can."

Nature throws her protecting arms around them; Beauty pitches her
tents before them; Heaven rains its riches upon them: with "no enemy
but Winter and rough weather," Peace hath taken up her abode with
them; and they have nothing to do but to "fleet the time carelessly,
as they did in the golden world."

But no words of mine, I fear, will justify to others my own sense of
this delectable workmanship. I can hardly think of any thing else in
the whole domain of Poetry so inspiring of the faith that "every
flower enjoys the air it breathes." The