28 MEMOIR OF JOHN WILSON. 



aspects it assumes, when under the influence of various passions and 

 feelings ; you have, in a manner truly admirable, explained a circum- 

 stance, very important in its effects upon the soul when agitated, 

 that has indeed been frequently alluded to, but never generally 

 adopted by any author in tracing the progress of emotions — I mean 

 that wonderful effect which the appearances of external nature have 

 upon the mind when in a state of strong feeling. We must all have 

 been sensible, that when under the influence of grief, Nature, when 

 arrayed in her gayest attire, appears to us dull and gloomy, and 

 that when our hearts bound with joy, her most deformed prospects 

 seldom fail of pleasing. This disposition of the mind to assimilate 

 the appearances of external nature to its own situation, is a fine sub- 

 ject for poetical allusion, and in several poems you have employed 

 it with a most electrifying effect. But you have not stopped here, 

 you have shown the effect which the qualities of external nature 

 have in forming the human mind, and have presented us with sev- 

 eral characters whose particular bias arose from that situation in 

 which they were planted with respect to the scenery of nature. 

 This idea is inexpressibly beautiful, and though, I confess, that to 

 me it appeared to border upon fiction when I first considered it, yet 

 at this moment I am convinced of its foundation in nature, and its 

 great importance in accounting for various phenomena in the human 

 mind. It serves to explain those diversities in the structure of the 

 mind which have baffled all the ingenuity of philosophers to account 

 for. It serves to overturn the theories of men who have attempted 

 to write on human nature without a knowledge of the causes that 

 affect it, and who have discovered greater eagerness to show their 

 own subtlety than arrive at the acquisition of truth. May not the 

 face of external nature through different quarters of the globe account 

 for the dispositions of different nations ? May not mountains, forests, 

 plains, groves, and lakes, as much as the temperature of the atmos- 

 phere, or the form of government, produce important effects upon 

 the human soul ; and may not the difference subsisting between the 

 former of these in different countries, produce as much diversity 

 among the inhabitants as any varieties among the latter ? The effect 

 you have shown to take place in particular cases, so much to my sat- 

 isfaction, most certainly may be extended so far as to authorize gen- 

 eral inferences. This idea has no doubt struck you ; and I trust 

 that if it be founded on nature, your mind, so long accustomed to 



