The Natural History of Selborne

If a masterly lands-cape painter was to take our hanging woods in their autumnal colours, persons unacquainted with the country, would object to the strength & deepness of the tints, & would pronounce, at an exhibition, that they were heightened & shaded beyond nature.  Wonderful & lovely to the Imagination are the colourings of our wood-land scapes at this season of the year!

“The pale descending year, yet pleasing still,/A gentler mood inspires; for now the leaf/Incessant rustles from the mournful grove,/Oft startling such as, studious, walk below,/And slowly circles thro’ the waving air./But should a quicker breeze amid the boughs/Sob, o’er the sky the leafy deluge streams;/Till chak’d & matted with the dreary shower,/The forest-walks, at every rising gale,Roll wide the wither’d wast, & whistle bleak.” — Thompson’s Autumn