Summer! glowing summer! This is the month of heat and sunshine, of
clear, fervid skies, dusty roads, and shrinking streams; when doors and
windows are thrown open, a cool gale is the most welcome of all
visiters, and every drop of rain "is worth its weight in gold." Such is
July commonly--such it was in 1825, and such, in a scarcely less degree,
in 1826; yet it is sometimes, on the contrary, a very showery month,
putting the hay-maker to the extremity of his patience, and the farmer
upon anxious thoughts for his ripening corn; generally speaking,
however, it is the heart of our summer. The landscape presents an air of
warmth, dryness, and maturity; the eye roams over brown pastures, corn
fields "already white to harvest," dark lines of intersecting
hedge-rows, and darker trees, lifting their heavy heads above them. The
foliage at this period is rich, full, and vigorous; there is a fine haze
cast over distant woods and bosky slopes, and every lofty and majestic
tree is filled with a soft shadowy twilight, which adds infinitely to
its beauty--a circumstance that has never been sufficiently noticed by
either poet or painter. Willows are now beautiful objects in the
landscape; they are like rich masses of arborescent silver, especially
if stirred by the breeze, their light and fluent forms contrasting
finely with the still and sombre aspect of the other trees.

Now is the general season of _haymaking_. Bands of mowers, in their
light trousers and broad straw hats, are astir long before the fiery eye
of the sun glances above the horizon, that they may toil in the
freshness of the morning, and stretch themselves at noon in luxurious
ease by trickling waters, and beneath the shade of trees. Till then,
with regular strokes and a sweeping sound, the sweet and flowery grass
falls before them, revealing at almost every step, nests of young birds,
mice in their cozy domes, and the mossy cells of the humble bee
streaming with liquid honey; anon, troops of haymakers are abroad,