and, let the reasoning powers be shrewd in excess, the knowldge vast, or sensibility intense, and it will go hard but that the isible object will suggest so much that it shall be soon itself orgotten, or become, at the utmost, merely a kind of key-note o the course of purposeful thought. Newton, probably, did not perceive whether the apple which suggested his meditations on gravity was withered or rosy; nor could Howard be affected by the picturesqueness of the architecture which held the sufferers it was his occupation to relieve.

§ 6. This wandering away in thought from the thing seen to the business of life, is not, however, peculiar to men of the highest reasoning powers, or most active benevolence. It takes place more or less in nearly all persons of average mental endowment. They see and love what is beautiful, but forget their admiration of it in following some train of thought which it suggested, and which is of more personal interest to them. Suppose that three or four persons come in sight of a group of pine-trees, not having seen pines for some time. One, perhaps an engineer, is struck by the manner in which their roots hold the ground, and sets himself to examine their fibres, in a few minutes retaining little more consciousness of the beauty of the trees than if he were a rope-maker untwisting the strands of a cable to another, the sight of the trees calls up some happy association, and presently he forgets them, and pursues the memories they summoned a third is struck by certain groupings of their colors, useful to him as an artist, which he proceeds immediately to note mechanically for future use, with as little feeling as a cook setting down the constituents of a newly discovered dish; and a fourth, impressed by the wild coiling of boughs and roots, will begin to change them in his fancy into dragons and monsters, and lose his grasp of the scene in fantastic metamorphosis while, in the mind of the man who has most the power of contemplating the thing itself, all these perceptions and trains of idea are partially present, not distinctly, but in a mingled and perfect harmony. He will not see the colors of the tree so well as the artist, nor its fibres so well as the engineer; he will not altogether share the emotion of the sentimentalist, nor the trance of the idealist; but fancy, and feeling, and perception, and imagination, will all obscurely meet and balance

themselves in him, and he will see the pine-trees somewhat in

this manner :

"Worthier still of note

Are those fraternal Four of Borrowdale,

Joined in one solemn and capacious grove;

Huge trunks! and each particular trunk a growth
Of intertwisted fibres serpentine

Up-coiling, and inveterately convolved;
Nor uniformed with Phantasy, and looks
That threaten the profane; a pillared shade,
Upon whose grassless floor of red-brown hue,
By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged
Perennially, beneath whose sable roof

Of boughs, as if for festal purpose, decked
With unrejoicing berries, ghostly Shapes

May meet at noontide; Fear and trembling Hope,

Silence and Foresight; Death the Skeleton,

And Time the Shadow; there to celebrate,
As in a natural temple scattered o'er
With altars undisturbed of mossy stone,
United worship."

§ 7. The power, therefore, of thus fully perceiving any natu ral object depends on our being able to group and fasten all our fancies about it as a centre, making a garland of thoughts for it, in which each separate thought is subdued and shortened of i its own strength, in order to fit it for harmony with others; the intensity of our enjoyment of the object depending, first, on its own beauty, and then on the richness of the garland. And men who have this habit of clustering and harmonizing their thoughts are a little too apt to look scornfully upon the harder workers who tear the bouquet to pieces to examine the stems. This was the chief narrowness of Wordsworth's mind; he could not understand that to break a rock with a hammer in search of crystal may sometimes be an act not disgraceful to human nature, and that to dissect a flower may sometimes be as proper as to dream over it; whereas all experience goes to teach us, that among men of average intellect the most useful members of society are the dissectors, not the dreamers. It is not that they love nature or beauty less, but that they love result, effect, and progress more; and when we glance broadly along the starry crowd of benefactors to the human race, and guides of human

thought, we shall find that this dreaming love of natural beauty

or at least its expression-has been more or less checked by them all, and subordinated either to hard work or watching of human nature. Thus in all the classical and medieval periods, it was, as we have seen, subordinate to agriculture, war, and religion; and in the modern period, in which it has become far more powerful, observe in what persons it is chiefly manifested.

§ 8. I have purposely omitted the names of Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Scott, in the second list, because, glancing at the two columns as they now stand, we may, I think, draw some useful conclusions from the high honorableness and dignity of the names on one side, and the comparative slightness of those on the other, conclusions which may help us to a better understanding of Scott and Tennyson themselves. Glancing, I say, down those columns in their present form, we shall at once perceive that the intense love of nature is, in modern times, characteristic of persons not of the first order of intellect, but of brilliant imagination, quick sympathy, and undefined religious principle, suffering also usually under strong and ill-governed passions while in the same individual it will be found to vary at different periods, being, for the most part, strongest in youth, and associated with force of emotion, and with indefinite and feeble powers of thought; also, throughout life, perhaps developing itself most at times when the mind is slightly unhinged by love, grief, or some other of the passions.

§ 9. But, on the other hand, while these feelings of delight in natural objects cannot be construed into signs of the highest

mental powers, or purest moral principles, we see that they ar assuredly indicative of minds above the usual standard of power, and endowed with sensibilities of great preciousness to human ty; so that those who find themselves entirely destitute of them. must make this want a subject of humiliation, not of pride The apathy which cannot perceive beauty is very different from the stern energy which disdains it; and the coldness of heart which receives no emotion from external nature, is not to be confounded with the wisdom of purpose which represses emotion ¦ in action. In the case of most men, it is neither acuteness of the reason, nor breadth of humanity, which shields them from the impressions of natural scenery, but rather low anxieties, vain discontents, and mean pleasures; and for one who is blinded to the works of God by profound abstraction or lofty purpose, tens of thousands have their eyes sealed by vulgar selfishness, and their intelligence crushed by impious care.

Observe, then we have, among mankind in general, the three orders of being;-the lowest, sordid and selfish, which neither sees nor feels; the second, noble and sympathetic, but which sees and feels without concluding or acting; the third and highest, which loses sight in resolution, and feeling in work.*

The investigation of this subject becomes, therefore, difficult beyond all other parts of our inquiry, since precisely the same sentiments may arise in different minds from totally opposite causes; and the extreme of frivolity may sometimes for a moment desire the same things as the extreme of moral power and dignity. In the following extract from "Marriage," the sentiment expressed by Lady Juliana (the ineffably foolish and frivolous heroine of the story) is as nearly as possible what Dente would have felt, under the same circumstances:

"The air was soft and genial; not a cloud stained the bright azure of the heavens; and the sun shone out in all his splendor, shedding life and beauty even over the desolate heath-clad hills of Glenfern. But, after they had journeyed a few miles, suddenly emerging from the valley, a scene of matchless beauty burst at once upon the eye. Before them lay the dark blue waters of Lochmarlie, reflecting, as in a mirror, every surrounding object, and bearing on its placid, transparent bosom a fleet of herring-boats, the drapery of whose black, suspended nets contrasted, with picturesque effect, the white sails of the larger vessels, which were vainly spread to catch a breeze. All around, rocks, meadows, woods, and hills mingled in wild and lovely irregularity.

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Thus, even in Scott and Wordsworth themselves, the love of nature is more or less associated with their weaknesses. Scott shows it most in the cruder compositions of his youth, his perfect powers of mind being displayed only in dialogues with which description has nothing whatever to do. Wordsworth's distinctive work was a war with pomp and pretence, and a display of the majesty of simple feelings and humble hearts, together with high reflective truth in his analysis of the courses of politics and ways of men ; without these, his love of nature would have been comparatively worthless.

§ 10. "If this be so, it is not well to encourage the observance of landscape, any more than other ways of dreamily and ineffectually spending time ?"

Stay a moment. We have hitherto observed this love of natural beauty only as it distinguishes one man from another, not as it acts for good or evil on those minds to which it necessarily belongs. It may, on the whole, distinguish weaker men from stronger men, and yet in those weaker men may be of some notable use. It may distinguish Byron from St. Bernard, and Shelley from Sir Isaac Newton, and yet may, perhaps, be the best thing that Byron and Shelley possess a saving element in them; just as a rush may be distinguished from an oak by its bending, and yet the bending may be the saving element

“Not a breath was stirring, not a sound was heard, save the rushing of a waterfall, the tinkling of some silver rivulet, or the calm rippling of the tranquil lake; now and then, at intervals, the fisherman's Gaelic ditty, chanted as he lay stretched on the sand in some sunny nook; or the shrill, distant sound of childish glee. How delicious to the feeling heart to behold so fair a scene of unsophisticated nature, and to listen to her voice alone, breathing the accents of innocence and joy! But none of the party who now gazed on it had minds capable of being touched with the emotions it was calculated to inspire.

"Henry, indeed, was rapturous in his expressions of admiration; but he concluded his panegyrics by wondering his brother did not keep a cutter, and resolving to pass a night on board one of the herring-boats, that he might eat the fish in perfection.

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Lady Juliana thought it might be very pretty, if, instead of those frightful rocks and shabby cottages, there could be villas, and gardens, and lawns, and conservatories, and summer-houses, and statues.

Miss Bella observed, if it was hers she would cut down the woods, and level the hills, and have races."