5Q TRAVELS IN S\VEDEN.

hum of the country gradually subsiding, the barking of the village cur, mingled with the noisy gambols of the children upon the green, are born by the gale upon the listening stranger, in the sweet notes of peace and harmony, till the gray vest of night spreads around, and closes the scene. In the former the Sun reluctantly quits the horizon at eleven o’clock; his lingering rays, even at the hour of midnight, throw a streak of crimson light across the heavens, and im- part a fiery tinge to the landscape ; a dead silence reigns, and creation reposes in the absence of the night. Even in the small hamlets, thinly scattered through the immense forests, at a very early hour of evening no traces of inhabitants appear. The ploughman’s whistle, the lowing of the herds, and the deep tone of the evening curfew, so enchantingly described by our bard, are unheard; and not a sound strikes upon the ear, except, perchance, the distant tones of the lure, blown by some Swedish peasant boy, to collect his wander- ing cows. The whispering breeze, however, creeping through the dark pine forest, sighs in melancholy accents sweet as the JEolian lyre, and fills the mind with the softest emo- tions; while the eye, darting between the tall straight trunks rising in quick succession, conjures up amid the sur- rounding gloom the flitting forms of fancy. Thus, for a short time, eve's pensive hour glides silently on, undisturbed and uncnjoyed by man, who, wrapt in sleep, thinks only of preparing himself for the toils of the coming day. At one o’clock thc animal creation returns to life, and the singing of