weight,

I loved whate'er I saw: nor lightly loved, Or aught of heavier or more deadly But most intensely; never dreamt of aught In trivial occupations, and the round More grand, more fair, more exquisitely Of ordinary intercourse, our minds 214 framed Are nourished and invisibly repaired;

Than those few nooks to which my happy A virtue, by which pleasure is enhanced, feet

As piety ordained; could I submit
To measured admiration, or to aught
That should preclude humility and love?
felt, observed, and pondered; did not
judge,

That penetrates, enables us to mount,
When high, more high, and lifts us up

The obedient servant of her will. Such moments

Are scattered everywhere, taking their date

Yea, never thought of judging; with the From our first childhood. I remember gift

There are in our existence spots of time,

hat with distinct pre-eminence retain renovating virtue, whence, depressed

well,

225

And iron case were gone; but on the turf,

Hard by, soon after that fell deed was wrought,

Some unknown hand had carved the murderer's name.

240

The monumental letters were inscribed
In times long past; but still, from year
to year,

y false opinion and contentious thought, By superstition of the neighbourhood,

Bb

The grass is cleared away, and to this Else never canst receive. The days gor

Against the blowing wind. It was, in Such is my hope, the spirit of the Past

Invested moorland waste, and naked pool,
The beacon crowning the lone eminence,
The female and her garments vexed and My brothers and myself. There rose

tossed By the strong wind. When, in the blessed That, from the meeting-point of t

For these remembrances, and for the I sate half-sheltered by a naked wall;

Followed his body to the grave. The Advanced in such indisputable shapes; All these were kindred spectacles and sounds

That day so lately past, when from the Down to this very time, when storm and

BOOK THIRTEENTH.

IMAGINATION AND TASTE, HOW IMPAIRED AND
RESTORED. (CONCLUDED).

FROM Nature doth emotion come, and | Of self-applauding intellect; but trains

Such benefit the humblest intellects Partake of, each in their degree; 'tis mine To speak, what I myself have known and felt;

Smooth task! for words find easy way,

inspired

By gratitude, and confidence in truth. 15
Long time in search of knowledge did I

To meekness, and exalts by humble fait.;
Holds up before the mind intoxicate a
With present objects, and the busy daar
Of things that pass away, a temperate shor
Of objects that endure; and by this coure
Disposes her, when over-fondly set
On throwing off incumbrances, to seek
In man, and in the frame of social life,
Whate'er there is desirable and good
Of kindred permanence, unchanged in
form

And function, or, through strict vic
tude

Of life and death, revolving. Above al
Were re-established now those watch

thoughts

Which, seeing little worthy or sublime
In what the Historian's pen so much

lights

To blazon-power and energy detached From moral purpose-early tutored me To look with feelings of fraternal love Upon the unassuming things that hold A silent station in this beauteous work. Thus moderated, thus composed, I found The field of human life, in heart and Once more in Man an object of delight, mind Of pure imagination, and of love; Benighted; but, the dawn beginning And, as the horizon of my mind enlarge Again I took the intellectual eye

range

now

To re-appear, 'twas proved that not in For my instructor, studious more to see Great truths, than touch and hand

vain

21

I had been taught to reverence a Power
That is the visible quality and shape
And image of right reason; that matures
Her processes by steadfast laws; gives
birth

To no impatient or fallacious hopes,
No heat of passion or excessive zeal,
No vain conceits; provokes to no quick

turns

25

Into its true proportion; sanguine schemes, Ambitious projects, pleased me less; I sought

61

for present good in life's familiar face,
And built thereon my hopes of good to

come.

"Inspect the basis of the social pile: Enquire," said I, "how much of mental

power

95

And genuine virtue they possess who live
By bodily toil, labour exceeding far
Their due proportion, under all the weight
Of that injustice which upon ourselves

With settling judgments now of what Ourselves entail." Such estimate to frame would last

And what would disappear; prepared to find 65 resumption, folly, madness, in the men Who thrust themselves upon the passive world

s Rulers of the world; to see in these, wen when the public welfare is their aim, lans without thought, or built on theories

70

ague and unsound; and having brought
the books

f modern statists to their proper test,
ife, human life, with all its sacred claims
f sex and age, and heaven-descended
rights,

ortal, or those beyond the reach of
death;

75 nd having thus discerned how dire a thing

worshipped in that idol proudly named The Wealth of Nations," where alone that wealth

I chiefly looked (what need to look beyond?)

ΙΟΙ

Among the natural abodes of men,
Fields with their rural works; recalled
to mind

My earliest notices; with these compared
The observations made in later youth,
And to that day continued.-For, the
time

106

Had never been when throes of mighty
Nations

And the world's tumult unto me could

yield,

How far soe'er transported and possessed, Full measure of content; but still I craved

110

An intermingling of distinct regards
And truths of individual sympathy
Nearer ourselves. Such often might be
gleaned

From the great City, else it must have
proved

To me a heart-depressing wilderness; 115 lodged, and how increased; and having But much was wanting: therefore did Ĭ gained

0 composition of the brain, but man
I whom we read, the man whom we be-
hold

ith our own eyes-I could not but
enquire

ot with less interest than heretofore, 85 at greater, though in spirit more subdued

hy is this glorious creature to be found e only in ten thousand? What one is, hy may not millions be? What bars are thrown

Nature in the way of such a hope? 90 ur animal appetites and daily wants, re these obstructions insurmountable? not, then others vanish into air.