Even the hens of the farm-yard cackle with no new tone of hope and animation at the birth of the English Spring.

The fact is, it is a baby three months old when it is baptised.

It is really born at Christmas instead of Easter, and makes no more stir in the family circle of the seasons than any familiar face would at a farmer's table.
In a utilitarian point of view, it is certainly an immense advantage to all classes in this country, that Nature has tempered her climates to it in this kindly way.

I will not run off upon that line of reflection here, but will make it the subject of a few thoughts somewhere this side of John O'Groat's.

But what England gains over us in the practical, she loses in the poetical, in this economy of the seasons.