the way back into the track of truth, was the simple, kindly, upright Cowper; and assuredly it was a task worthy of a Christian poet—that of endeavoring to paint the works of the Creation in their native dignity, rather than tricked out in conventional devices of man.
Still, all this might have taken place without producing that especial attention to autumn, perceptible in later English writers; that very frequent mention of its softer days and varied foliage, which marks a change of feeling from the “chilling autumn” of Shakspeare, and the foliage “dusk and dun” of Thomson. One is led to believe that the American autumn has helped to set the fashion for the sister season of the Old World; that the attention which the season commands in this country, has opened the eyes of Europeans to any similar graces of the same months in their own climates; the gloom is less heeded by them, while every pleasing touch is noted with gratification. In the same way, we now see frequent allusions to the “Indian summer” by Englishmen, in their own island, where this last sweet smile of the declining year was entirely unheeded until its very marked character in this country had attracted admiration. Our native writers, as soon as we had writers of our own, pointed out very early both the sweetness of the Indian summer, and the magnificence of the autumnal changes. In fact, they must have been dull and blind not to have marked both these features of the season, as we usually
