en, upon a holiday, or on the Sunday, after having attended
divine worship, they make little excursions with their wives and
children among neighbouring fields, whither the whole of each family
might stroll, or be conveyed at much less cost than would be required to
take a single individual of the number to the shores of Windermere by
the cheapest conveyance. It is in some such way as this only, that
persons who must labour daily with their hands for bread in large towns,
or are subject to confinement through the week, can be trained to a
profitable intercourse with Nature where she is the most distinguished
by the majesty and sublimity of her forms.

For further illustration of the subject, turn to what we know of a man
of extraordinary genius, who was bred to hard labour in agricultural
employments, Burns, the poet. When he had become distinguished by the
publication of a volume of verses, and was enabled to travel by the
profit his poems brought him, he made a tour, in the course of which, as
his companion, Dr. Adair, tells us, he visited scenes inferior to none
in Scotland in beauty, sublimity, and romantic interest; and the Doctor
having noticed, with other companions, that he seemed little moved upon
one occasion by the sight of such a scene, says--'I doubt if he had much
taste for the picturesque.' The personal testimony, however, upon this
point is conflicting; but when Dr. Currie refers to certain local poems
as decisive proofs that Burns' fellow-traveller was mistaken, the
biographer is surely unfortunate. How vague and tame are the poet's
expressions in those few local poems, compared with his language when he
is describing objects with which his position in life allowed him to be
familiar! It appears, both from what his works contain, and from what is
not to be found in them, that, sensitive as they abundantly prove his
mind to have been in its intercourse with common rural images, and with
the general powers of Nature exhibited in storm and in stillness, in
light or darkness, and in the various aspects of the seasons, he was
little affected by the sight of one spot in preference to another,
unless where it derived an interest from history, tradition, or local
associations. He lived many years in Nithsdale, where he was in daily
sight of Skiddaw, yet he never crossed the Solway for a better
acquaintance with that mountain; and I am persuaded that, if he had been
induced to ramble among our Lakes, by that time