more poetical word, der Lenz, for spring; but the Germans, as we all know, have peculiar notions on the subject of gender, for they have made the sun feminine, and the moon masculine. The Spaniards have adopted the same words as the Italians, with the same genders—la primavera, el verano or el estio, el otoño, el invierno, spring alone being feminine. In French, we have them all masculine, strictly speaking, le printemps, l'été, l'automne, l'hiver; but by one of the very few licenses permitted in French grammar, autumn occasionally becomes feminine, in a sense half poetical, half euphonical. Strictly speaking, we are taught that, with an adjective preceding it, autumn, in French, is always masculine.
| “ | Ou quand sur les côteaux le vigoureux Automne |
| Etalait ses raisins dont Bacchus se couronne;” |
while with the adjective coming after, it is feminine: “une automne delicieuse,” says Madame de Sévigné. But this rule is often neglected in verse, by the same writers who are quoted as authority for it, as we have seen in “la pâle automne” of Delille; the feeling and tact of the individual seem to decide the question; and this is one of the very few instances in which such liberty is allowed to the French poet. As might be supposed, the variation becomes a grace; and probably if something more of the same freedom were generally diffused through the language, the poetry of France would have more of that life and spirit which is now chiefly confined to her greater writers in verse. In that case, we should have had more than one Lafontaine to delight us.
In English, thanks to our neuter gender, poets are allowed to do as they choose in this matter; and in many cases they have chosen to represent all three of the earlier seasons in a feminine form—not
