81 



as refreshing to the imagination as to the soil through which 

 they passed. 



Nature did not spread her table of fruits before us merely 

 for the gratification of the bodily appetites ; these were duly 

 considered ; but a higher purpose was also served, — the feast- 

 ing of the inner sense by their beauty : the exquisite forms 

 and colours of nature were to pass into and dwell in the 

 imagination, — to mingle their radiance with our thoughts, — 

 to purify the passions, — and refine the manners. Books 

 were not to be regarded as the sole media of mental im- 

 provement, to the exclusion of the teachings of art, and the 

 aesthetic monitions of nature. 



The subject he said was not sufficiently recognized in our 

 systems of education. The laws which govern the proportions 

 and harmony of the visible forms of creation were certainly 

 deserving of more general consideration than was at present 

 awarded them. Many passed their lives in utter heedlessness 

 of the magic wonders that surrounded them, and would not 



aeux 



" the heavens, nor the flow 

 Of rivers, nor hill-flowers running wild 

 In pink and purple che^juer ; nor, up-piled 

 The cloudy rack slow journeying in the west 

 Like herded elephants." 



Some, it was true, sought wealth with the view, at some 

 distant period, of purchasing houses and lands, where, amid 

 the works of nature and of art, they might study and enjoy 

 the Beautiful ; but among such, too many found, alas too late, 

 that, in the pursuit of business they had lost their sense of 

 beauty; and that the stranger, poor in estate, but rich in 

 cultivated taste, might derive a greater enjoyment from the 

 view and contemplation of their dear-bought estates, than 

 they, the owners, could have in their possession ! 



He proceeded to treat upon the different kinds, or orders, 

 of beauty, which nature's vast storehouse presented ; and re-' 

 marked that we met with the highest development of the 



u 



