"I observed him noting down even the peculiar little wild flowers and herbs that accidentally grew round and on the side of a bold crag near his intended Cave of Grey Denzil, and could not help saying, that, as he was not to be upon oath in his work, daisies, violets, and primroses would be as poetical as any of the humble plants he was examining. I laughed, in short, at his scrupulousness; but I understood him when he replied, 'that in Nature no two scenes were exactly alike, and that whoever copied truly what was before his eyes would possess the same variety in his descriptions, and exhibit apparently an imagination as boundless as the range of Nature in the scenes he recorded; whereas, whoever trusted to his imagination would soon find his own mind circumscribed and contracted to a few images, and the repetition of these would sooner or later produce that very monotony and barrenness which had always haunted descriptive poetry in the hands of any but the patient worshippers of truth.'" This is excellent good sense, and the descriptive poetry of Bryant shows how carefully he has observed the rules which Scott has laid down. He never has a conventional image, and never resorts to the second-hand frippery of a poetical commonplace-book to tag his verses with. Every season of our American year has been delineated by him, and the drawing and coloring of his pictures are always correct. Our American springs, for instance, are not at all the ideal or poetical springs, and Bryant does not pretend that they are; and yet he can find a poetical side to them, as witness his poem entitled "March":-- "The stormy March is come at last, With wind, and cloud, and changing skies: I hear the rushing of the blast That through the snowy valley flies. "Ah, passing few are they who speak, Wild, stormy month! in praise of thee; Yet, though thy winds are loud and bleak, Thou art a welcome month to me. "For thou to northern lands again The glad and glorious sun dost bring; And them hast joined the gentle train, And wear'st the gentle name of Spring. "And in thy reign of blast and storm Smiles many a long, bright, sunny day, When the changed winds are soft and warm, And heaven puts on the blue of May." This is all as strictly true as if it were drawn up for an affidavit. March, as we all know, is the eldest daughter of Winter, and bitterly like her grim sire. The snow which has melted from the uplands lingers in the valleys; the storms, and the cloudy skies, and the rushing blasts mark the sullen retreat of winter; but the days are growing longer, the sun mounts higher, and sometimes a soft and vernal air flows from the blue sky, like Burns's daisy "glinting forth" amid the storm.