Fields, where with chearful spirits he had breath’d

The common air; the hills, which he so oft

Had climb’d with vigorous steps; which had impress’d

So many incidents upon his mind

Of hardship, skill or courage, joy or fear;

Which, like a book, preserved the memory

Of the dumb animals, whom he had sav’d,

Had fed or shelter’d, linking to such acts,

So grateful in themselves, the certainty

Of honourable gain; these fields, these hills

Which were his living being, even more

Than his own blood—what could they less? had laid

Strong hold on his affections, were to him

A pleasureable feeling of blind love.

The pleasure which there is in life itself.

On the other hand, in the poems which are pitched at a lower note, as the Harry Gill, Idiot Boy, the feelings are those of human nature in general; though the poet has judiciously laid the scene in the country, in order to place himself in the vicinity of interesting images, without the necessity of ascribing a sentimental perception of their beauty to the persons of his drama. In The Idiot Boy, indeed, the mother’s character is not so much a real and native product of a ‘situation where the essential passions of the heart find a better soil, in which they can attain their maturity and speak a plainer and more emphatic language’, as it is an impersonation of an instinct abandoned by 

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