The noisy mart, my spirit walks the hills."
GLADNESS OF NATURE.—Midnight—when asleep so still and silent—seems inspired with the joyous spirit of the owls in their revelry—and answers to their mirth and merriment through all her clouds. The moping owl, indeed!—the boding owl, forsooth! the melancholy owl, you blockhead! why, they are the most cheerful, joy-portending, and exulting of God's creatures. Their flow of animal spirits is incessant—crowing cocks are a joke to them—blue devils are to them unknown—not one hypochondriac in a thousand barns—and the Man-in-the-Moon acknowledges that he never heard one utter a complaint.
[THE NOONING.]
Mr. Darley's very characteristic picture on the opposite page needs no description, it so thoroughly explains itself, and realizes his intention. The following lines from Mary Howitt seem very appropriate to the sketch:
"O golden fields of bending corn,
How beautiful they seem!
The reaper-folk, the piled up sheaves,
To me are like a dream;
The sunshine and the very air