402 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1794. 



Rural and rustic 



Must necessarily seem synonymous 

 to foreigners, who see them used 

 perpetually for each other in our 

 best authors — or think they do — 

 because the words are commonly 

 appropriated with a selection exact 

 enough. England, say we, affords 

 more situations than one may justly 

 term rural, than any nation or coun- 

 try in Europe; for in France, Itaiv, 

 and Germany, st least, you are al- 

 ways too near (to), or tuo far from, 

 a great city; so tliat the prominenr 

 features of every landscape exhibit 

 cither wildness approaching to bar- 

 barity, or else cultivation resembling 

 a garden more than fields ; — where- 

 as in Great Britain, where opulence 

 is more diffused, and knowledge less 

 concentrated, nature accepts the 

 character of individuals, and every 

 place possesses some agreeable or- 

 naments, which tend to its embel- 

 lishment — though no spot is by the 

 accumulation of such ornaments 

 made more splendid than beautiful. 

 ^wraZ elegance is tlie pride and plea- 

 sure of our happy island, whence 

 rustic grossness and rough scenery 

 are so nearly expelled, that you seek 

 for them in vain at a great distance 

 from the capital, among the lakes of 

 Westmoreland, or along the sea- 

 coasts of Devonshire. Whence our 

 fastidious travellers, perhaps, 



Tir'dofthe tedious and di^relish'd good, 

 Seek for their solace in xcknowledg'd ill, 

 Danger, and toil, and pain. 



Graham's TtLEMACHUs. 



we climb the Alps of Switzerland 

 and Savoy, or journey round the 

 Hebrides, in search of contrast and 

 variety, delighting to penetrate the 

 hidden recebses of natnre, and 



Call her where she sits alone, 

 Majestic on her craggy throne. 



Such views produce magnificent 

 ideas in the mind, but they are ideas 

 of God, not man . He always seems 

 debased on such a theatre, and, to 

 say true, generally acts his part upon 

 them with rusticity enough : while 

 foreigners are often heard to admire 

 our peasantry both in the north and 

 west of England, each with his 

 watch, his little shelf of books, 

 trimmed hedge, clean shirt, and 

 planted garden ; enjoying that rural 

 siniplicity, and elegant competence 

 — glory of Britons ! — great and en- 

 viable result of equal laws and mild 

 administration I 



Let them remember then those lawrs, 

 those rights, 



That generous plan of pow'r deliver'*! 

 down 



From age to age by their renown'd fore- 

 fathers, 



So deairly bought, the price of so much 

 blood. 



Addison's Cato. 



Taste, intellectual reUsh,niceperception 

 of excellence, Jine discernment. 



The first is the true word, which, 

 in a breath, expresses what all the 

 rest, although synonymous, describe 

 by circumlocution. — The first is the 

 word profanedby so many coxcombs, 

 who, repeating opinions from men 

 wiser than themselves, profess a /aj/^ 

 for what they do not even under- 

 stand — poetry, painting, or thebeau- 

 ties of nature, which it is the pecu- 

 liar province of poets and painters 

 to describe. ItaHans have, how- 

 ever, httle need of counsel here : 

 they never, I think, pretend to have 

 a taste for any thing they do not 

 sincerely delight in, and have no 

 notion of valuing themselves on 

 their nice perceptions of Rafaelle's 



excellence, 



