called strictly pastoral; he was a
creature of streets and crowding houses; no man could have been more
ignorant of the every-day offices of rural life; I doubt if he ever knew
from which side a horse was to be mounted or a cow to be milked, and a
sprouting bean was a source of the greatest wonderment to him. Yet, in
spite of all this, what a book those Essays of his make, to lie down
with under trees! It is the honest, lovable simplicity of his nature
that makes the keeping good. He is the Izaak Walton of London
streets,--of print-shops, of pastry-shops, of mouldy book-stalls; the
chime of Bow-bells strikes upon his ear like the chorus of a milkmaid's
song at Ware.

There is not a bit of rodomontade in him about the charms of the
country, from beginning to end; if there were, we should despise him. He
can find nothing to say of Skiddaw but that he is "a great creature";
and he writes to Wordsworth, (whose sight is failing,) on Ambleside, "I
return you condolence for your decaying sight,--not for anything there
is to see in the country, but for the miss of the pleasure of reading a
London newspaper."

And again to his friend Manning, (about the date of 1800,)--"I am not
romance-bit about _Nature_. The earth and sea and sky (when all is said)
is but as a house to dwell in. If the inmates be courteous, and good
liquors flow like the conduits at an old coronation,--if they can talk
sensibly, and feel properly, I have no need to stand staring upon the
gilded looking-glass, (that strained my friend's purse-strings in the
purchase,) nor his five-shilling print, over the mantel-piece, of old
Nabbs, the carrier. Just as important to me (in a sense) is all the
furniture of my world,--eye-pampering, but satisfies no heart. Streets,
streets, streets, markets, theatres, churches, Covent Gardens, shops
sparkling with pretty faces of industrious milliners, neat seamstresses,
ladies cheapening, gentlemen behind counters lying, authors in the
street with spectacles, lamps lit at night, pastry-cooks' and
silver-smiths' shops, beautiful Quakers of Pentonville, noise of
coaches, drowsy cry of mechanic watchmen at night, with bucks reeling
home drunk,--if you happen to wake at midnight, cries of 'Fire!' and
'Stop thief!'--inns of court with their learned air, and halls, and
butteries, just like Cambridge colleges,--old book-stalls, 'Jeremy
Taylors,' 'Burtons on Melancholy,' and 'Religio Medicis,' on every
stall. These are thy pleasures,