"The melancholy days are come--the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear; Heap'd in the hollows of the grove, the summer leaves lie dead; They rustle to the eddying wind, and to the rabbit's tread: The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay, And from the wood-top calls the crow, thro' all the gloomy day." Stern and forbidding as are the general features of our northern climate--cold and chilling as the gay Southron may deem, even the very air we breathe,--we have still some characteristics of climate peculiar to ourselves, and none the less pleasing to us from this fact. Our hearts must indeed be as hard and as cold as the very granite of our craggy shores, did they not glow with delight in the possession of that, (be it what it may) which is peculiar to and markedly characteristic of our native home. And of all these peculiarities not one is so delightful--not one finds us so rich in New England feeling, as that beautiful season called the Indian Summer. It occurs in October, and is characterized by a soft, hazy atmosphere--by those quiet, and balmy days, which seem so like the last whisperings of a Spring morning. The appearance of the landscape is like any thing, but the fresh and lively scenery of Spring; and yet the delicious softness of the atmosphere is so like it, that it brings back fresh to the mind all the beautiful associations connected with a vernal day. Our forests too, at this season are, for a brief space, clothed in the most gorgeous and magnificent array; their brilliant and changing hues, and the magnificence of their whole appearance, almost give their rich and mellow tint to the atmosphere itself; and render this period unrivalled in beauty, and unequalled in the more equable climes of our western neighbors. The calm sobriety of the scenery--the splendid variety of the forest coloring, from deep scarlet to russet gray, and the quiet and dreamy expression of the autumnal atmosphere make a deeper impression on the mind than all the verdant promises of spring, or the luxuriant possession of summer. The aspen birch in its pallid white--the walnut in its deep yellow--the brilliant maple in its scarlet drapery--and the magical colors of the whole vegetable world, from the aster by the brook to the vine on the trellis, combine to render the autumnal scenery of New-England the most splendid and magnificent in the world. But we cannot forget, if we would, that this beautiful magnificence of the forests is but the livery of death; and the changing hues of the leaves, beautiful though they are, still are but indications of the sure, but gradual progress of decay. 'Lightly falls the foot of death Whene'er he treads on flowers:' and though he has breathed beauty on the clustered trees of the forest--it is to them the breath of the Sirocco.