vegetables, replied, that herbs were made for beasts, and beasts for men!1

But Milton-how happy he was at those moments, which he was permitted, in early youth, to devote to the pleasures of rural contemplation, we may sufficently perceive from the manner, in which he expresses his gratitude to his father, for having granted those pure and innocent indulgencies.

Nec rapis ad leges, malè custoditaque gentis
Jura, nec insulsis damnas clamoribus aures;
Sed magis, &c. &c.

Ad. Patrem.

Nor did you force me, mid the bar's hoarse throng,

To gather riches from a nation's wrong.

To higher hopes you bade me lift my mind,

And leave the town and civic din behind;

Mid sweet retreats, where streams Aonian glide,
You placed me happy by Apollo's side.

He resumes the melancholy subject of his blindness, in his fine tragedy of Samson Agonistes; where he pathetically laments, in the person of Samson, the cheerless and dreary void, left in his heart, by being debarred the common pleasures of a fine day, or the milder influence of a lunar sky. Ossian too,-that sublime and pathetic poet!-participating in the

1 Rousseau said of the inhabitants of the Pays de Vaud, " the natives and the country are not made for each other!" The same may be said of Wales, of Italy, and of all other fine countries. Men of all orders and climates can derive satisfaction from eating, drinking, talking, and endeavouring to get money: but to enjoy Nature! It is a puerile species of freemasonry to nine-tenths of the world.

1

same calamity, with genuine feeling pours out, in the richest strain of poetry, the tender sorrow of his heart.

XIV.

The celebrated BERKELY, Bishop of Cloyne,' often declared, that the happiest summer, he ever enjoyed, was in the small island of Inarine, near Naples; which he called the epitome of the earth. And what enthusiast of our nation is ignorant of the beauties, elegancies and virtues, that adorned the best and most lovely woman of her age? Your imagination, my Lelius, immediately wafts you to the tomb of ELIZABETII ROWE! A woman, who imparted a perfume even to the graces; and with whom to compare even Harmonica herself were the highest measure of panegyric. There was scarcely a flower, an insect, or a bird, that grew, crept, or sung in her garden, which did not administer to her happiness. No one passes her tomb without a look of affection.

Where can we read of a nobler character, than that pride of his country and ornament of his age, SIR PHILIP SIDNEY? In that "warbler of poetic

1.Berkely's System of Philosophy seems to have been derived from the east. The Soofees of Caubul* believe the entire animate, as well as inanimate creation, to be one vast system of illusion: grounding their arguments on the belief, that the great power only exists; and that all which is seen, let bodies appear in what shape they may, are so many modifications of form, in which the Deity is pleased to exhibit itself.

* Elphinstone, p. 207, 4to.

prose," were combined every quality, which could adorn the soldier, and all the virtues, which could elevate a man. No one so high, who did not consider himself honoured by his friendship; no one so low, to whom he was uncourteous, or to whom he did not consider it a duty to afford every benevolence in his power. He ennobled even the military art! The boast of the soldiery, and the idol of the women; he was the encourager of every science. And though his Arcadia is deformed with Italian concetti, and puerile descriptions, yet many are the passages, in which he has indicated an ardent love of the sublime in sentiment, and of the beautiful in landscape.

A greater lover of Nature never lived than BACON. When he read, he had music in the next room; flowers and sweet herbs stood upon his table; and when he was caught in the rain, he would take off his hat, let the drops fall over his head, and exclaim that he felt, as if the spirit of the universe were upon him.

LORD LITTLETON forgot the statesman in the bowers of Hagley: CHILLINGWORTH loved to meditate under the shades of Oxford: and AKENSIDE possessed an enthusiastic love of Nature; as his poem on the Pleasures of Imagination sufficiently demonstrates.Often," says he, in his Hymn to the Naiads, " often did the Muses reveal to me their secrets;

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XV.

GOLDSMITH, who bore the same resemblance to Rousseau, that Rousseau bore to Tasso, was so eager to behold whatever was worthy of admiration in Europe, that, almost without money, he travelled over a large portion of France, Switzerland and Germany on foot; and gained a subsistence, as he went along, by playing on the flute to the peasants, to whom his good-nature endeared him; and to the monasteries, to which he recommended himself, by the vivacity and versatility of his genius. Had Goldsmith written an account of the scenes he saw, and the adventures he met with, it would have been one of the most entertaining of all books of travel. To the simplicity of Rousseau, and the elegance of Albani, would perhaps have been joined the spirit and enthusiasm of Dupaty.

ARMSTRONG has signalized his love of Nature in many a beautiful passage: and SMOLLET, whose genius was more adapted to the ludicrous, than to the elegant departments of literature,-even Smollet, as we may learn from a fine passage in his Ode to Independence, had a taste for rural contemplations :

Nature I'll court in her sequestered haunts,
By mountain, meadow, streamlet, grove, or cell;
Where the pois'd lark his evening ditty chaunts,

And health and peace, and contemplation dwell.

JOHNSON, too, though he wages war against all the pastoral, and some of the best descriptive poets, has yet left, in his odes and poems, something to the honour

of natural taste and beauty. Those to the Isle of Sky have passages, indicating, that peace and happiness might be enjoyed among rocks and mountains; and that the shores of the Highlands were worthy even of returning echoes to the name of Thrale. ...No one was a more ardent admirer of the bolder features of landscape than BEATTIE. His Hermit, his Retirement and his Minstrel, would have immor talized his name, even if he had never written his Essay on Poetry and Music. The following passage is a gem, extracted from a jewelled casket.

O how canst thou renounce the boundless store
Of charms, which Nature to her votʼry yields?
The warbling woodland, the resounding shore,
The pomp of groves and garniture of fields;
All, that the genial ray of morning gilds,

And all that echoes to the song of even ;
All that the mountain's sheltering bosom shields,
And all the dread magnificence of heaven;

O how canst thou renounce, and hope to be forgiven !

XVI.

Minstrel.

The love of Nature is indeed instinctive in all ele→ gant minds. It begins in youth, and continues through manhood, even up to age. This passion,· unfortunate that it should be so!-was one of the many causes, that ruined one of Nature's worthiest sons. Who, that has beheld Piercefield, does not heave a sigh at the mention of VALENTINE MORRIS? Who that sits beneath his beach-trees; stands on his precipices; looks down his lover's leap; surveys his

VOL. III.