INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. XIX 



invariably ardent lovers of Nature. To them it 

 is a passion and an appetite their voice sounds 

 from antiquity in 



Flumina amem sylvasque inglorius. 



Need I advert to our older poets, who are full 

 of it ? To Chaucer, to Gawain Douglas, to the 

 picturesque and arcadian Spenser, to the uni- 

 versal Shakspeare, to the solemn majesty of Mil- 

 ton ? What a beauty and a freshness mark the 

 poetry of the last great man whenever he 

 touches on Nature ! We feel, as expressed in 

 his own simile: 



As one who long in populous city pent, 

 Where houses thick and sewers annoy the air, 

 Forth issuing on a summer morn to breathe 

 Among the pleasant villages and farms. 



But the full extent of his love is only to be felt 

 where he laments the loss of his sight. Speak- 

 ing of light, he says, 



Thee I revisit safe, 



And feel thy sovran, vital lamp, but thou 

 Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain 

 To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn ; 

 So thick a drop serene hath quenched their orbs, 

 Or dim suffusion veiled : yet not the more 

 Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt 



