Chill were its sunless rooms, and drear the aisles 50 Rough were the scenes, as was the master's mind, Which Nature, bordering on th' abode, design'd; Forests of age untold, whose unpierc'd wood Ne'er to the labourer's echoing ax had bow'd; Soft lawns, which mid surrounding coverts spread, By the wild tenants of the scene were fed; 60 Deep dells, with fern, and brake, and twisted thorn When War's alarms no more around him rag'd, No toil fatigues him, and no danger stays; O age of luxury! O days of ease! The restless, vigorous, soul ye ne'er can please! And heath and sunshine all the landscape fills; 80 90 So, when wan Indolence and timid Joy, And fiends of hell, and sprites of loathsome Pain, с 110 с I had just finished this Essay, when I received the two following from a most valuable and respected Correspondent. Feb. 2, 1807. 10 N° II. On the Effects of Rural Scenery. These are thy glorious works, Parent of good!" THE pride and vanity of man, in order to distinguish him from the inferior animals of the crea tion, instead of having recourse to that reason by which he alone was formed "after the image" and "in the likeness" of his Maker, has led him to imagine a thousand frivolous and trifling marks of difference. Hence one philosopher defines him to be a laughing, and another a weeping, animal. One makes the chief criterion between him and brutes, to be, that he walks upon two legs, and is not covered with feathers; and another, with an affectation of piety, that he walks upon two legs, and looks up to heaven; "Os Hominis sublime dedit, cœlumque tueri jussit." One, that he is the most perfect of creatures; and another, that he is the most helpless. So that, in short, the most inconsiderable varieties of form and manners have served them as sufficient foundations on which to build the most important of all generic distinctions; although in reality a negro, from under the equator, differs more in mere external appearance from a Greenlander, or an inhabitant of Terra del Fuego, than either of them does from several other animals. But though it may be very truly asserted, and few persons will now be disposed to contradict it, that the only real and certain difference between us and all other creatures, consists in the inestimable gift of reason; still this does not completely solve the difficulty; for beasts also have some degree of understanding; and the wisest of men have never yet been able to explain the exact analogy which the internal faculties of the "half reasoning elephant," and the acute instinct of the dog, bear to our boasted understanding. There is however one faculty of man, connected indeed with reason; but wholly independent of the exercise of its higher powers; which has, I believe, been entirely overlooked in all the various speculations upon this subject, and which yet seems to form a very marked ground of distinction between the human race and brutes. This is the delight occasioned to the mind by rural scenery; so that Į would define man as an "animal capable of receiving pleasure from the beauties of Nature." Of this there is not the least ground for supposing that other creatures are at all susceptible. No horse, or dog, has ever been observed to stop to enjoy the |