A GOOD WORD FOR WINTER. 29 



try the edge of his knife on a chicken of the Platonic 

 sort, and leave more precious bones as an offering to the 

 genius of the place. The ancients were certainly more 

 social than we, though that, perhaps, was natural 

 enough, when a good part of the world was still covered 

 with forest. They huddled together in cities as well for 

 safety as to keep their minds warm. The Romans had a 

 fondness for country life, but they had fine roads, and 

 Rome was always within easy reach. The author of the 

 Book of Job is the earliest I know of who showed any 

 profound sense of the moral meaning of the outward 

 world ; and I think none has approached him since, 

 though Wordsworth comes nearest with the first two 

 books of the " Prelude." But their feeling is not pre- 

 cisely of the kind I speak of as modern, and which gave 

 rise to what is called descriptive poetry. Chaucer opens 

 his Clerk's Tale with a bit of landscape admirable for its 

 large style, and as well composed as any Claude. 



" There is right at the west end of Itaille, 

 Down at the root of Vesiilus the cold, 

 A histy plain abundant of vitaille, 

 Where man_y a tower and town thou mayst behold, 

 That founded were in time of fathers old, 

 And many an other delectable sight; 

 And Saluces this noble country hight." 



What an airy precision of touch there is here, and 

 what a sure eye for the points of character in landscape ! 

 But the picture is altogether subsidiary. No doubt 

 the works of Salvator Rosa and Caspar Poussin show that 

 there must have been some amateur taste for the gi'and 

 and terrible in scenery ; but the British poet Thomson 

 (" sweet-souled " is Wordsworth's apt word) was the first 

 to do with words what they had done partially with 

 colors. He was turgid, no good metrist, and his English 

 is like a translation from one of those poets who wrote 

 in Latin after it was dead ; but he was a man of sincere 



