ings and ideas are associated with them ! Pure and innocent as themselves, they are the first objects of 
infantine regard ; they offer to the youthful mind a never-failing source of rational enjoyment ; they are 
cheering in old age, and yield a calm and elegant satisfaction, which pleases without agitation, and has a 
beneficial effect upon the health and mind. The old man, who walks abroad in a fine spring morning, when 
the air is fresh and the flowers are opening to the sun, feels his spirits renovated, and his heart expands with 
joy. The productions of the woods and hedges remind him of those which he has gathered with companions 
who have perhaps long since departed. Something of a melancholy feeling may be connected with the 
recollection of them ; but it is a melancholy which bids fair to render the heart better. He recalls to mind 
the seasons in which he has seen them bloom and fade around him, and they appear as so many emblems of 
his own mortality. He may sigh to think that all flesh is but as grass, and the goodliness thereof as a 
flower of the field ; yet they still remind him that as the loveliness of nature is restored by the breath of the 
vernal season, so shall the dead arise from the winter of the grave to light and immortality. He remembers 
that there is a country which the sacred writers compare to a garden, watered by the river of life, and pro- 
ducing a tree whose fruit shall never fail ; in which the unfading flowers of kindness, benevolence, and 
piety, transplanted from the bleak and churlish atmosphere of this lower world ; where even now they bring 
forth abundant fruits of refreshment and consolation shall blossom for ever with their beauty undiminished 
and their lustre unimpaired. 
There is also a joyous feeling which sheds itself abroad, invests all nature with a power and a spell, fills 
the heart with gladness, and even prompts the tear which it is luxury to shed. From the cottage to the 
throne this influence is powerfully felt. Queen Elizabeth, surrounded with the restless anxieties of interest i 
and ambition, and feeling strong within her that love of rural sights and rural sounds, which Cowper has 
happily denominated, “ an inborn inextinguishable thirst,” often wished that she was a milk-maid in the i 
flowery month of May, because “ untroubled with cares and fears such persons sing sweetly all the day, and 
sleep securely all the night.” “ How pleasante is the wholesome morninge walke,” said the prioress. Lady 
Juliana Barnes, who, more than three centuries since, celebrated the pleasures of a country life, “ to scente 
the sweete savour of meade flowers, and hear the melodious harmonie of fowles.” It is, indeed, delightful 
to walk abroad into the gay creation, and derive agreeable ideas at every step ; when the hawthorns and | 
well-attired woodbines, bending over the dewy banks, appear to offer from their cups the richest fragrance I 
to the passing traveller. All nature is then beauty to the eye and music to the ear, and, we may justly add, i 
that it is fragrance to the smell. Yet all this beauty, melody, and fragrance are but so many voices in the i 
mighty anthem which celebrate the greatness and benevolence of God. “ All thy works praise thee,” said 
the Psalmist, when in a strain of eloquence, perhaps, never equalled by mortal man, he calls upon the hosts 
of heaven, the stars of light* the mighty waters, and stormy winds, mountains, and all fruitful trees, cattle, 1 
and flying fowls, to join with him in praises to the Great Jehovah, whose glory is above the heavens and the j 
earth. The mind, which has never been imbued with the spirit of devotion, cannot fully enter into the 
beauty and magnificence of the material system ; but, to those who recognise a present Deity in all his | 
works, what exquisite enjoyment and heart-felt pleasure is derivable from the various objects by which they | 
are surrounded ! The spacious vault of heaven is to them the temple of the living God, in which, from the 
earth’s great altar, the incense of thanksgiving continually ascends ; “ things animate and inanimate are his | 
worshippers,” and the elements are the ministers of his will. 
It has been elegantly observed, that the imagination of the poet can give animation to whatever he de- 
scribes. “ All the beauty and sublimity of the moral and intellectual world are at his disposal, and by 
bestowing on the objects of scenery the characters and affections of mind, he can produce at once an expres- 
sion which every capacity may understand and every heart may feel.” If the facilities for enjoyment pos- 
sessed by the poet are equal to his descriptive powers, are they actually superior to such as are afforded to 
the botanist by his favourite pursuit ? It is impossible for those who are unable to appreciate the pure and | 
simple pleasures which the lavish works of nature continually afford, to imagine the elasticity of thought, ! 
the joy and energy that pervades his bosom, when ranging — 
“ Vales and mountains to explore 
What healing virtue swells the tender vein* 
Of herbs and flowers.” 
