--PASQUIL'S _Palinodia_.
The month of April has nearly passed away, and we are fast approaching
that poetical day, which was considered, in old times, as the boundary
that parted the frontiers of winter and summer. With all its caprices,
however, I like the month of April. I like these laughing and crying
days, when sun and shade seem to run in billows over the landscape. I
like to see the sudden shower coursing over the meadow, and giving all
nature a greener smile; and the bright sunbeams chasing the flying
cloud, and turning all its drops into diamonds.
I was enjoying a morning of the kind, in company with the Squire, in
one of the finest parts of the park. We were skirting a beautiful
grove, and he was giving me a kind of biographical account of several
of his favourite forest trees, when he heard the strokes of an axe
from the midst of a thick copse. The Squire paused and listened, with
manifest signs of uneasiness. He turned his steps in the direction of
the sound. The strokes grew louder and louder as we advanced; there
was evidently a vigorous arm wielding the axe. The Squire quickened
his pace, but in vain; a loud crack, and a succeeding crash, told that
the mischief had been done, and some child of the forest laid low.
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