SHAKESPEARE AND NATURE 
163 
simplest aesthetic appreciation of her, and who was able in a 
unique manner to “ put by the cloud of mortal destiny ” when 
he spoke of her, is yet full of the subjective treatment of her. It 
is hard to find a word to express the especial character of his 
manner of interpreting her, but perhaps it is more moral than 
either religious or mystical, and yet, in a sense, it is both of 
these. He tells us that he has found in her — 
A presence that disturbs me with the joy 
Of elevated thoughts .... 
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
. . . . that impels 
All thinking things, all objects of all thoughts, 
And rolls through all things. 
That he recognises in her — 
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse. 
The guide, the guardian of my heart and soul, 
Of all my moral being ; 
and that to a mind in harmony with her she will teach more 
“ than all the sages can.” Byron alone of modern poets who 
wrote much on this subject can hardly be said to have a philo- 
sophy of Nature. Not that his descriptions of her are not 
coloured by his own character; this, of course, they are. His 
love and admiration for her are deepened in their intensity by 
his misanthropy ; they reflect the passion and energy of his 
nature : the mountains, waves, and skies are a part of him and 
of his soul ; he would be a sharer in the fierce and far delight 
of the tempest ; he would condemn all objects if compared 
with these ; but they do not speak to him of anything beyond. 
They have no moral meaning for him, still less a religious one, 
nor do we find traces of a mystical interpretation unless it be 
in such a rare passage as — 
All is concenter’d and in a life intense 
Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost, 
But hath a part of being and a sense 
Of that which is of all Creator and defense. 
Now in this respect Shakespeare more nearly resembles him 
than any of the other poets we have mentioned. We must 
emphasise the words “ in this respect,” for it is in this only. 
Shakespeare’s love of Nature was not a passion, and could 
never have been expressed in words aglow with such a heat as 
Byron’s is; and the sweetness of his disposition would never 
have allowed him to extol Nature at the expense of humanity. 
But he does not interpret her ; she has for him no religious, or 
moral, or mystical meaning. He represents impartially every 
side of her, the blue-veined violets, the luscious woodbine, the 
gracious light, proud-pied April, old December’s bareness, the 
spotted snakes, the thorny hedgehogs, the wrathful skies, the 
sheets of fire, the burst of horrid lightning ; but he does not 
give prominence to one side of her more than to another, does 
