CHAPTER X.
The cheerful Sun, that thro' Earth's vitals pours
Delight, and health, and heat;—all,—all conspire
To raise, to sooth, to harmonize the mind,
And lift on wings of praise to the Great Sire
Of being, and of beauty."
Warton.
The sway of Winter was now broken. His "ruffian winds," which had howled and moaned through the many rocky defiles of N———, as if they were reverberating in the cave of Eolus, subsided into fitful gales, or sighed in humid breezes. The roads were no longer enlivened by the sound of sleigh-bells, and the neighbouring farmers exchanged the sled which had long conveyed their pro ducts to market, for the heavy wheel'd, and creaking wain. The boys, who had been seen, during the daily school-intervals, descending with surprizing velocity the steep, snowy declivities, or marking with "armed heel," graceful circles upon a surface of ice, now resigned the instruments of their favourite sports. Those, who had been nurtured in the economical habits of their fathers, restored to the accustomed peg in the barn, or tool-house, their sled and skates, carefully anointed with oil, as a preservative of the wood, and the metal, which entered into their composition, covered with paper, as an additional security against rust. Some there are, in these modern
