40 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



is, that there is no Work of Nature but what 

 flrengthens it's particular concert, or, if you will, 

 it's natural character, by the habitation of Man ; 

 and which does not communicate, in it's turn, to 

 the habitation of Man, fome expreflion of gran- 

 deur, of gaiety, of terror, or of majéfty. There 

 is no verdant mead but what is rendered more 

 cheerful by a dance of fhepherdelTes and their 

 fvvains ; and no temped but what acquires addi- 

 tional horror from the fhipwreck of a veflel. Na- 

 ture raifes the phyfical character of her Works to 

 a fublime moral character, by collecting them 

 around mankind. This is not the place to defcant 

 at large on the new order of fentiments hereby 

 fuggefted. I fatisfy myfelf, at prefent, with ob- 

 ferving, that (lie not only employs particular con- 

 certs to exprefs, in detail, the characters of her 

 Works ; but when (lie means to exprefs thefe 

 fame characters on the great fcale, fhe combines a 

 multitude of harmonies and of contrails of the 

 fame kind, in order to form of them one great ge- 

 neral concert, which has only a fingle expreflion, 

 let the field of reprefentation be ever (b extenfive. 



Thus, for example, in order to exprefs the ma- 

 leficent character of a venemous plant, (he com- 

 bines in it claming oppofitions of the forms and 

 colours which are the indications of that male- 

 ficence ; fuch as retreating and briftly forms, livid 



colours, 



