XVI INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 



the centre of the densest cities, and in the lowest 

 habitations of poverty and ignorance. But it is 

 a principle which requires, like all others, culti- 

 vation. Let it once be lit up, and it will never 

 die ! Let the mind, in which it has once been 

 excited, become enlightened and expanded with 

 knowledge, and it " will grow with its growth, 

 and strengthen with its strength." Thus it is 

 that it has ever been found the most intense 

 in the greatest minds : the poets especially, 

 (who are, if truly entitled to that glorious name, 

 particularly accustomed to cherish in their spi- 

 rits pure and lofty sentiments, liberal opinions, 

 warm and generous emotions, that their writ- 

 ings being eminently imbued with those quali- 

 ties may diffuse them through society in coun- 

 teraction of the deadening spirit of the world,) 

 are found invariably ardent lovers of Nature. 

 To them it is a passion and an appetite — their 

 voice sounds from antiquity in 



Flumina amem sylvasque inglorius. 



Need I advert to our older poets, who are full 

 of it? To Chaucer, to Gawain Douglas, to the 

 picturesque and Arcadian Spenser, to the uni- 

 versal Shakspeare, to the solemn majesty of 

 Milton ? What a beauty and a freshness mark 

 the poetry of the last great man whenever he 

 touches on Nature ! We feel, as expressed in 

 his own simile : — 



