INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. XX111 



which often visits mine, when I behold little chil- 

 dren 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 thou- 

 sand sylvan, leafy nooks, by the liquid music of 

 running waters, amidst the fragrant heath, or on 

 the flowery lap of the meadow, occupied with 

 winged wonders without end. Oh ! that I could 

 but baptize every heart with the sympathetic feel- 

 ing 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 influence, not 

 only as a most fertile source of pure and substan- 

 tial pleasures, pleasures which, unlike many others, 

 produce, instead of satiety, desire ; but also as a 

 great moral agent; and what effects I anticipate 

 from this growing taste may be readily inferred, 

 when I avow it as one of the most fearless articles 

 of my creed, that it is scarcely possible for a man, 



