INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. XXV11 



lancholy which often visits mine, when I be- 

 hold little children endeavouring to extract 

 amusement from the very dust, and straws, and 

 pebbles of squalid alleys, shut out from the free 

 and glorious countenance of Nature, and think 

 how differently the children of the peasantry 

 are passing the golden hours of childhood; 

 wandering with bare heads and unshod feet 

 perhaps, but singing a " childish wordless me- 

 lody," through vernal lanes, or prying into a 

 thousand sylvan, leafy nooks, by the liquid 

 music of running waters, amidst the fragrant 

 heath, or on the flowery lap of the meadow, oc- 

 cupied with winged wonders without end. Oh! 

 that I could but baptize every heart with the 

 sympathetic feeling of what the city-pent child 

 is condemned to lose ; how blank, and poor, 

 and joyless must be the images which fill its 

 infant bosom to that of the country one, whose 

 mind 



Will be a mansion for all lovely forms, 

 His memory be a dwelling-place 

 For all sweet sounds and harmonies. 



I feel however, an animating assurance that 

 Nature will exert a perpetually increasing in- 



