INTRODUCTION. 27 



and sublime ideas of universal nature. To men of genius 

 and contemplative habits, the roaming along river-banks, 

 and beside placid waters, gives rise to the most refined 

 intellectual enjoyments. Such persons move in a world 

 of their own, and experience joys and sorrows, with which 

 the world cannot intermeddle. How lively, then, how 

 pure, how refined, how truly exquisite, must those delights 

 be to the mind which can penetrate into Nature's works, 

 and gaze with instructed eye on the woods, the rocks, 

 and waterfalls ! And how evanescent and worthless does 

 every thing appear, which such a one leaves behind him 

 in the crowded and pent-up city ! 



It must, in short, be obvious to the most careless ob- 

 server apparent to the most prejudiced antagonist of the 

 gentle art that, the frequent opportunities afforded the 

 angler of contemplating the ever- varying aspect of nature, 

 cannot fail to be attended with advantages of no mean 

 order; inasmuch, as such contemplations have a direct 

 tendency to elevate the mind, and subdue and purify the 

 heart. Under the influence of those awful sublimities, 

 which mountain, and rock, and tree, and torrent throw 

 around their united presence, the mind imperceptibly 

 assumes a tone which harmonises with these striking 

 scenes; and as the giant shadows sweep across the broad 

 brow of the majestic mountain, and the free breeze comes 

 laden with mysterious music through the waving boughs, 

 which sob and sigh in unison with the passing strain, 

 the full heart gushes over in its deep delight, and the 

 imagination teems with those shadowy phantoms of un- 

 seen glory, to which the poet's soul owes some of its 

 loftiest aspirations. 



Amidst the calmness and repose of more quiet and 

 placid scenery, where the sublime gives place to the 



