NEW BOOKS.

NATURAL MS- 1 Howitt's Book of the Seasons, 0th I vol. Tony, I the Calendar of Nature .... .... POETRY Buiwer's Siamese Twins; a ...... fled Tale of the Times 1 Vol.

nen om ...... .. Mothers and Daughters 3 Vols.

Fan i onrcALs... Richardson's Bengal Annual 1 Vol.

Foreign Quarterly Review Quarterly Journal of Agriculture Burke's Royal Register, Genealo-

gical and Historical

Colburn& Bentley.

Ditto. Ditto. Smith and Co. Cal- cutta, No. XIII. Treuttel & warm No. XII. Blackwood, Edin- . burgh.

1 Vol. Jennings&Chaplin

THE SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

THE HOWITTS havegot a nice quiet name in literature—worthy of their sect, their love of Nature, their simple and amiable tastes.. They are nearly the only agreeable acquaintances to whom the costly Annuals have introduced the world. The Book of the Seasons is a species of poetical and natural calendar : the revolu- tions of the year are watched by an eye awake to the beauties of Nature, and not unskilled in her secrets : the results of these observations are pleasantly recOrcled under the head of each month, and are 'mixed up with poetical quotations and original poems, which harmonize with the prose. We did not look for much sci-

entific originality, and we do not find it"; but Mr..Howirr. has fancy,

and often. records his little experiences in a lively and interesting manner. • Under the head of January, for instance, lie thus de- scribes -the passion for destruction that takes possession of the whole race of British youth in that month. The picture of the boy watching his trap through the keyhOle, may be recommended to KIDD or WEBSTER as an admirable subject for those peculiar powers of humorous painting in which the British school excels all others, but which has as yet gained little credit except in the su- perexcellence of WILKIE, because it is not copied from some foreign model which it is the traditionary fashion to praise.

" At if the feathered race did not suffer enough from famine and the sev.erity of the weather, every body seems now up in arms against them. The law, with a spirit of humanity honourable to the nation, is opposed to traching.g,ame in a snow ; yet this is a time of peculiar enjoyment to the spOrtsman: Water-fowl are driven from their secluded haunts in ineres and marshes to "open streams ; snipes and woodcocks to springs and small runnels, where they become accessible, and easily found. In towns and villages, every niechanic and raw lad is seen marching forth with:his gun to slay his quota of red-wings, field-fares, &c. which now become passive from cold and hunger. Let all good people, who. value their persons, keep at a distance from suburban hedges; for such sports- matt is sure to pop at every bird which cOmes before him, be it sparrow, tomtit, or robin red-breast; nothing comes amiss to hitn, and nothing ' dees-he think of but his mark. Many an eye has been lost; many a cow, horse, and sheep, has felt the sharp. salutation of. his desperate shot, and shall do again ; for if the.public does not take warning,, he will not. In farm-yards, trains of corn are laid, and scores of sparrows, finches, &c. are slatightered at a Shot. Even the school-boy is bent-upon their destruc- tion: His trap, made of four bricks and a' few pegs, is to be seen in every garden, and Under every rick ; and with a sieve, a stick, and a string, drawn through.a window or a keyhole, lie is standing ready to pounce upon them. Not even night, with its deepest shades, can protect them at this Cruel time.. They are roused from their slumbers in the sides of warm stacks, by a sieve or a net, fixed upon a pole; being clapped before them. Those which roost in hedges and copses are aroused by beating the trees and bushes, at the same time that they are dazzled with the glare of a torch, and, flying instinctively towards the light, are knocked down and secured. This is called in some counties bird-moping ; and in this manner are de- stroyed great numbers of pheasants, thrushes, blackbirds, besides innu- merable small birds. With all these enemies, and these various modes of destruction, it is only surprising that the race is not extirpated."

'Under February, occurs an animated picture of the effects of a gale Of wind inland. The touch of the spectacled old woman rushing out to examine the state of her thatch, is of the same lively truth as the incident of the boy at the keyhole. •

"Wherever you go, the people, perhapi suddenly aroused from the tranquil fireside of a Sunday afternoon, are swarming upon the roofs of their houses like bees started from their cells, by the unexpected appear- ance of some formidable ifttruder, toiling to resist the outrageous attack of the storm upon the thatch ; which is, here and there, torn clean from the rafters, and in other places heaves and pants as if impatient to try a flight into the next fields or garden. There is an universal erection of ladders, a bustling, anxious laying-on of logs, rails, harrows, or what- ever may come to hand, to keep down the mutinous roof. Old wives, with spectacled noses, and kerchiefs incontinently tied over their mob- caps, are seen reconnoitering pig-sties, hen-roosts, &c. lest they be blown down, or something be blown down upon them. What a solemn and sublime roar, too, there is in the woods—a Sound as of tempestuous seas! Whatever poetical spirit can hear it without being influenced by incom- municable ideas of power, majesty, and the stupendous energies of the elements !

Oh storm and darkness, ye are wondrous strong !

What picturesque ruin is there scattered around you !—trees over- whelmed, immense branches torn down, small boughs broken, and dry leaves whirled along, or quivering in the air like birds. What a harvest of decayed sticks for the Goody Blakes, who, with checked-aprons held up, will not fail to discover iLl What a harvest, too, for the newspapers, which will be filled for a season with calamitous accounts of accidents and deaths, by falling of chimneys, shipwrecks, awl SP forth I" Towards the end of this month, there is an enumeration of the in- ternal sounds which burst out about that time. What a concert ! how busy—how cheering—how harmonious! All nature would seem one breathing, gobbling, cackling, chirping; whistling, sing- ing, and croaking assemblage of musicians.

"The harsh, loud voice of the-missel-thrush is now heard towards the end of the month ; and, if the weather be mild, the hedge. sparrow renews its chirping note. Turkey-cocks now strut and gobble; partridges begin to pair; the house-pigeon has young ; field-crickets open their holes; and wood-owls hoot ; gnats play about, and insects swarm under sunny &edges ; the stone-curlew clamours ; and frogs croak. By the end of February, the' raven has generally laid its eggs, and-begun to sit. About this time the grell,-.WoOdpeeker is heard In the woods 'Making a loud noise."

In this .same Month, there is a remark about haolecatchers, which pleases us for its general truth. Miss MITFoRD hits. said of the molecatcher, that he is " of the earth, earthy,"—which is non- sense; and Said simply for the sake of the quotation. Remark the picture which a different artist has drawn of him.

" He is of the green fields, of the solitary woodland's. We observe him, especially in the spring and the autumn, a silent and picturesque object, poring under hedges and along the skirts of the forest, or the margin of a stream, for traces of

The little black-a-moor pioneer

Grubbing his way in darkness drear.

We have Met him in copses and hazel-shaded lanes, Cutting sprinati for his traps ; and we not only love him, and look upon him as one of thilegi- timate objects of rural scenery, but have often found him a quiet but shrewd observer of • nature, and capable of enriching us with many fragments of knowledge. In the winter by his fire he makes his traps."

Molecatchers are the engineers of the village : we have away

remarked them to be men of .a mechanical turn, and if we had examined them, should doubtless have discovered a strong deve- lopment of the constructive o If we may take the droll enu- meration of the Phrenological Catechism—which is, by the way,. an exceedingly good compendium—they are of the same orchr of men as " Raphael, Michael Angelo, Brunel, Haydon, and Her- schel." (Catechism of Phrenology, p. 33.) They generally nor only by the winter fireside make mole-traps, rat-traps„ mouse- traps, nightingale-traps, and the whole round of trappeiy, but they commonly exercise their ingenuity on wooden clocks and. snuff-boxes: It iS true that they are, like all mechanical geniuses, of a silent race, and also shrewd as well as silent : their wisdom, long bottled up, " bursts in a maxim," (to use a phrase from the Siamese Twins), when it does escape: they are oracular in all matters of weather; and as by profession they are watchers of the ways of animals, they conunonly understand more of the king- dom of Nature than professors. We are glad of this opportunity of rescuing our silent, slinking. friends of the greenlanes and the coppice-corner from unmerited obloquy, and arc grateful to Mr. HOWITT for his true picture. Under the head of .April, Mr. HOWITT remarks on the passion of boys for bird-nesting, With that gusto which discloses in every word. the smacking reinembrances of an old offender and amateur.

"Boys are completely absorbed by their admiration of birds', nests. In vain do parents scold about torn clothes, scratched . hands, shoes spoiled with dew; every field and wood is traversed, every bush explored; no tree is too high,- no rock too dangerous, to climb; sticks, split at the end, are thrust into every hollow in wall, eaves, or tree-trunk, to twist out the hidden nest ; and I myself recollect being held by the heels over an old coal-pit sixty yards deep, to reach a blackbird's nest built in a hole two or three feet below the surface of the ground."

There is a good deal of canting humanity .generally wasted- on this subject. . The fad is, every- true naturali-st begins by bird- nesting. It is his first step in ornithology : it brings in its train health, the spirit of adventure, the power of climbing, a hawk's eye, a cat's paw, and a hare's ear: it quickens all the natural im- pulses, gives a taste for Nature and her productions, does no harm, and ends in good. The pathetic is unnecessarily appealed to in behalf of the bird robbed of its young-4t is siniply disturbed in its habits : who feels for a mouse's nest, or regrets having kicked over an ant's heap—where the confusion of the Stock Ex- change may be observed, and perhaps a great deal of its agonizing distress?

In this same month is an anecdote of a magpie, exceedingly characteristic of that droll bird. Mr. HOWITT is, however, mis- taken in thinking that the Magpie was stoning the toad for his amusement. . His object was the same as the eagle that broke ./Escilimus's head with letting down a tortoise upon his bald Skull.

"The magpie's nest may be seen in early spring in the tops of the leaf- less trees, a large cone of thorns, which is daubed internally with mud and lined with fine fibrous roots. It sometimes also builds in tall haw- thorn hedges. Wherever it be, wild or tame, it is the monkey of birds, full of mischief and mimicry. A gentleman told me, that one he kept . having stolen various articles was watched by him narrowly ; and at length was seen by him busy in the garden gathering pebbles, and with much solemnity and a studied air dropping them into a hole about eighteen inches deep, made to receive a line-post. After dropping each stone, it cried' carack I' triumphantly, and set off for another. Making himself sure that he had found the objects of his search, the gentleman went to the place, and found in the hole a poor toad which the magpie was stoning for his amusement."

The fact is, that the toad is a very thick-skinned fellow ; the magpie found great inconvenience in picking ,a hole in his leather jacket, and considered, that if he were pounded, toad-in-a-hole would be no bad dish for dinner.

HOWITT'S talent for minute observation may he illustrated by another little remark in the same month of April. "In farm-kitchens, in spring, we perpetually hear a chirping of chick- ens, ducklings, goslings, &c. and see a basket set near the fire, covered with a flannel ; or a worsted stocking rolling about the hearth, like a great snake, with here and there the head Of a chicken peeping through a hole."

• Under July, there occur some charming observations on "Field Paths." They are as just as they • are beautiful; and, though they will make rather a long quotation, and perhaps some- what interfere with the claims of. other works, we must be indulged in transcribing them.

• ." Field paths are at this season particularly attractive. I love our real old English footpaths. I love those rustic and picturesque stiles opening their pleasant escapes from frequented places and dusty highways into the solitudes of nature. It is delightful to catch a glimpse of one on the old village-green; under the old elder-tree by some ancient cottage, or half hidden by the overhanging boughs of a wood. I love to seethe smooth, dry track, winding away in easy curves along some green slope to the churchyard—to the forest grange—or to the embowered cottage. Itis to me an object of certain inspiration. It seems to invite.one from noise and publicity into the heart of solitude and of rural delight. It beckons the imagination on through green and whispering corn-fields, through the short but verdant pasture ; the flowering mowing-grass ; the odorous and sunny hay-field; the festivity of harvest ; from lonely farm to farm, from village to village ; by clear and mossy wells ; by tinkling brooks and deep wood-skirted streams, to crofts where the daffodil is rejoicing in spring, or meadows where the large blue geranium embellishes the sum- mer way-side; to heaths with their warm elastic sward and crimson bells —the chithering of grasshoppers,—the foxglove, and the old gnarled oak ; in short, to all the solitary haurits after which the city-pent lover of nature pants as the hart panteth after the water-brooks.' What is there so truly English ? What is so truly linked with our rural tastes, our sweetest memories, and our sweetest poetry, as stiles and footpaths ? Goldsmith, Thomson, and Milton have adorned them with some of their richest wreaths. They have consecrated them to poetry and love. It is along the footpath in secluded fields, upon the stile in the embowered lane, where the wild rose and the honeysuckle are lavishing theirbeauty -and their fragrance, that we delight to picture to ourselves rural lovers, breathing, in the dewy sweetness of summer even- ing, vows still sweeter. There it is that the poet, seated, sends back his soul into the freshness of his youth, amongst attachments since withered by neglect, rendered painful by absence, or broken by death ; amongst dreams and aspirations which, even now that they pronounce their own fallacy, are lovely. It is there that he gazes upon the gorgeous sunset— the evening star following, with its silvery lamp, the fading day, or the moon showering her pale lustre through the balmy night air, with a fancy that kindles and soars into the heavens before him ; there, that we have all felt the charm of woods and green fields, and solitary boughs waving in the golden sunshine, or darkening in the melancholy beauty of evening shadows. Who has not thought how beautiful was the sight of a village congregation, pouring out from their old grey church on a sum- mer day, and streaming off through the quiet meadows, in all directions, to their homes ? Or who that has visited Alpine scenery, has not beheld with a poetic feeling the mountaineers come winding down out of their romantic seclusions on a sabbath morning, pacing the solitary heath-tracks, bounding with elastic step down the fern-clad dells, or along the course of a riotous stream, as cheerful, as picturesque, and yet as solemn as the scenes around them?

"Again, I say, I love field paths, and stiles of all species—ay, even the most inaccessible piece of rustic erection, ever set up in defiance of age, laziness, and obesity. How many scenes of frolic and merry confusion have I seen at a clumsy style ! What exclamations, and blushes, and fine eventual vaulting on the part of the ladies ! and what an opportunity does it afford to beaux of exhibiting a variety of gallant and delicate atten- tions! I consider a rude stile as any thing but an impediment in the course of a rural courtship. "Those good old turnstiles too—can T ever forget them ?—the hours I have spun round upon them when a boy !—or those in which I have al- most laughed myself to death, at the remembrance of my village peda- gogue's disaster ! Methinks I see him now ! the time a sultry day—the domino a goodly person of some eighteen or twenty stone—the scene a footpath sentinelled with turnstiles—one of which held him fast as in amazement at his bulk. Never shall I forget his efforts and agonies to extricate himself; nor his lion-like roars which brought some labourers to his assistance, who, when they had recovered from their convulsions of laughter, knocked off the top of the turnstile and let him go. It is long since I saw a stile of this construction, arid I suspect the Falstaffs have cried them down. But, without a jest, stiles and footpaths are vanishing everywhere. There is nothing upon which the advance of wealth and population has made so serious an inroad. As land has increased in value, wastes and heaths have been parcelled out and inclosed, but seldom have footpaths been left. The poet and the naturalist, who before had, per- haps, the greatest real property in them, have had no allotment. They have been totally driven out of the promised land. Goldsmith complained in his day, that The man of wealth and pride Takes up a space that many poor supplied ; Space for his lake, his park's extended bounds,

Space for his horses, equipage, and hounds;

The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth

Has robbed the neighbouring fields of half their growth :

His seat where solitary sports are seen,

Indignant spurns the cottage from the green.

"And it is but too true, that the pressure of contiguous pride has driven farther, from that day to this, the public from the rich man's

lands. They make a solitude and call it peace.' Even the quiet and picturesque footpath that led across his fields, or stole along his woodside, giving to the poor man with his burden a cooler and nearer cut to the village, is become a nuisance. One would have thought that the rustic labourer, with his scythe on his shoulder, or his bill-hook and hedging-mittens in his hand—the cottage dame, in her black bonnet and scarlet cloak—the neat village maiden, in the sweetness of health and simplicity, or the boy strolling along full of life and curiosity, might have had sufficient interest in themselves for a cultivated taste not merely to tolerate, but to welcome—passing occasionally at a distance across the park or wood, as objects agreeably enlivening the stately solitude of the hall. But they have not ; and, what is more, they are commonly the most jealous of pedestrian trespassers who seldom visit their own estates, but permit the seasons to scatter their charms around their villas and rural possessions without the heart to enjoy, or even the presence to be- hold them. How often have I myself been arrested in some long-fre- quented dale,—in some spot endeared by its own beauties and the fasci- nations of memory, by a board exhibiting in giant characters, "STOPPED BY AN ORDER OF SESSIONS," and denouncing the terrors of the law upon trespassers ! This is 'a little too much. I would not be querulous for the poor against the rich. I would not teach them to look with an envious and covetous eye upon their villas, lawns, cattle, and equipage; but when the path of immemorial usage is closed—when the little streak, almost as fine as a mathematical line, along the wealthy man's ample field, is grudg- ingly erased, it is impossible not to 'feel indignation at the pitiful mono- poly. Is there no village champion to he found, bold enough to put in his protest against these encroachments,—to assert the public right ?— for a right it is, as authentic as that by which the land is itself held, and as clearly acknowledged by the .laws. Is there no local Hampden with dauntless breast to withstand the petty tyrants of the fields,' and to Save our good old footpaths? If not, we shall in a few years be doomed to the highways and the hedges; to look, like Dives, from a sultry re- gion of turnpikes into a plersant one of verdure and foliage which we may not approach. Already, the stranger; if he lose his way, is in jeopardy of falling into the horrid fangs of a steel trap; the botanist enters a wood to gather a flower, and ia shot with a spring-gun; Death

haunts our dells and copses, and the poet complains, in regretful notes,. that he

\rangers away to the field and glen,

Far as he may for the gentlemen.

"I am not so much of a poet, and so little of a political economist, as to lament over the progress of population. It is true that I see, with a poetical regret, green fields and fresh beautiful tracts swallowed up in ci- ties; but my joy in the increase of human life and happiness far outba- lances that imaginative pain. But it is when I see unnecessary and arbi- trary encroachments upon the rural privileges of the public, that I grieve. Exactly in the same proportion as our population and commercial habits gain upon us, do we need all possible opportunities to keep alive in us the spirit of Nature.

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;

Little there is in Nature that is ours.

We give ourselves up to the artificial habits and objects of ambition, till we endanger the higher and better feelings and capacities of our being ; and it is alone to the united influence of religion, literature, and nature, that we must look for the preservation of our moral nobility. Whenever, therefore, I behold one of cur old field paths closed, I regard it as another link in the chain which Mammon is winding around us,—another avenue cut off by which we might fly to the lofty sanctuary of Nature, for power to withstand him."