ar, intensify to our imagination the
mental state to which they are for the moment felt to be analogous?--

"Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by the sun of York!"

That will do. The feeling he wished to inspire, is inspired; and the
further analogical images which follow add nothing to _our_ feeling,
though they show the strength and depth of _his_ into whose lips they
are put. A bungler would have bored us with ever so many ramifications
of the same idea, on one of which, in our weariness, we might have
wished him hanged by the neck till he was dead.

We are an Old Man, and though single not singular; yet, without vanity,
we think ourselves entitled to say, that we are no more like Winter, in
particular, than we are like Spring, Summer, or Autumn. The truth is,
that we are much less like any one of the Seasons, than we are like the
whole Set. Is not Spring sharp? So are we. Is not Spring snappish? So
are we. Is not Spring boisterous? So are we. Is not Spring "beautiful
exceedingly?" So are we. Is not Spring capricious? So are we. Is not
Spring, at times, the gladdest, gayest, gentlest, mildest, meekest,
modestest, softest, sweetest, and sunniest of all God's creatures that
steal along the face of the earth? So are we. So much for our
similitude--a staring and striking one--to Spring. But were you to stop
there, what an inadequate idea would you have of our character! For only
ask your senses, and they will tell you that we are much liker Summer.
Is not Summer often infernally hot? So are we. Is not Summer sometimes
cool as its own cucumbers? So are we. Does not Summer love the shade? So
do we. Is not Summer, nevertheless, somewhat "too much i' the sun?" So
are we. Is not Summer famous for its thunder and lightning? So are we.
Is not Summer, when he chooses, still, silent, and serene as a sleeping
seraph? And so too--when Christopher chooses--are not we? Though, with
keen remorse we confess it, that, when suddenly wakened, we are too
often more like a fury or a fiend--and that completes the likeness; for
all who know a Scottish Summer, with one voice exclaim--"So is he!" But
our portrait is but half-drawn; you know but a moiety of our character.
Is Autumn jovial?--ask Thomson--so are we. Is Autumn melancholy?--ask
Alison and Gillespie--so are we. Is Autumn bright?--ask the woods and
groves--so are we. Is Autumn rich?--ask the whole world--so are we. Does
Autumn rejoice in the yellow gra