I care not, Fortune, what you me deny; Through which Aurora shows her brightening face: The woods and lawns, by living stream, at eve: "To a mind of that happy conformation which the poet here describes, the sources of pleasure are infinite. Nature is not less delightful in her general impressions, than when surveyed in detail; and to the former of these the verses above quoted seem chiefly to refer. It is certain that we experience a high degree of pleasure in certain emotions, excited by the general contemplation of nature, when the attention does not dwell minutely upon any of the objects that surround us. Sympathy, the most powerful principle in the human composition, has a strong effect in constituting the pleasure here alluded to. The stillness of the country, and the tranquillity of its scenes, have a sensible effect in calming the disorder of the passions, and inducing a temporary serenity of mind. By the same sympathy, the milder passions are excited, while the turbulent are laid asleep. That man must be of a hardened frame indeed, who can hear, unmoved; the song of the feathered tribes, when Spring calls forth all Nature's harmony,' or who can behold, without a corresponding emotion of joy and of gratitude, the sprightliness of the young race of animals, wantoning in the exercise of their new powers, and invigorated by the benignity of the air and the luxuriancy of their pastures." My friend Colonel Caustic, though I will venture to say for him, that he is neither without the sensi *Thomson's Castle of Indolence. bility of mind, nor the emotions of pious gratitude, which my correspondent justly supposes the contemplation of the rural scene to excite, yet surveys it not with feelings of quite so placid a sort as in some other minds it will be apt to produce. Here, as everywhere else, he stamps on the surrounding objects somewhat of the particular impression of his character. That sentiment, which, like the genius of Socrates, perpetually attends him, the child of virtue and of philanthropy, nursed by spleen, though here it puts on a certain tenderness which it has not in town, and is rather disposed to complain than to censure, yet walks with him, not unemployed, through his woods and his fields, and throws on the finest of their beauties a tint of its own colouring, as the glass of the little instrument called a Claude Lorraine, dims the landscape which is viewed through it. I have not been able to convince him that the weather is not very much changed from what it was in his younger days, and he quotes many observations in support of the milder temperature of the air in those long past seasons. But his sister, a very respectable maiden lady, a few years younger than the colonel, who keeps house for him, insists on the difference in stronger terms, and is surprised at my unbelief, even though it is confirmed by the register. Of her faith in this article she shows the sincerity, by her practice in household matters, having, as she tells me, for these fifteen or sixteen years past, taken out the greens from the fireplaces at least a fortnight earlier than formerly, and not uncarpeting the rooms, nor taking down the window curtains, till near a month later than she was wont to do. On the appearance of his own fields the colonel . does not say quite so much, the culture he has bestowed on them counteracting in that particular the natural deterioration; but wherever nature has been left to herself, her productions, according to him, have grown more scanty. When we start a hare, or flush a partridge in our walks, the colonel always tells me there is not one for ten in his grounds that he used to see formerly; and he rather seemed to enjoy than condole with my want of sport when I went yesterday a-fishing on the very same part of the river from which he informed me he was of old sure of catching a dish of trouts in an hour's time, any day of the season. Nor was he quite. well pleased with his man John's attempting to account for it, by his neighbor Lord Grubwell's having lately sent down a casting net for the use of his gamekeeper. On the subject of Lord Grubwell, however, in other matters, he is generally apt enough himself to expatiate. "This man," said he, "whose father acquired the fortune which afterwards procured the son his title, has started into the rank without the manners or the taste of a gentleman. The want of the first would only be felt those two or three times in the year when one is obliged to meet with him; but the perversion of the latter, with a full purse to give it way, makes his neighbourhood a very unfortunate one. That rising ground on the left, which was formerly one of the finest green swells in the world, he has put yon vile Gothic tower on, as he calls it, and has planted half a dozen little carronades on the top of it, which it is a favourite amusement with him to fire on holidays and birthdays, or when some respected visitor drinks tea there.' "That will frighten your Dryads," said I, smiling. "It often frightens my sister," replied the colonel; "and I am weak enough to let it fret me. I can bear the man's nonsense, when it is not heard two miles off. That ugly dry gap in the bank opposite to us was the channel of a rill, of which he turned the course to make a serpentine river for his Chinese bridge, which he had built without knowing where to find water for it. And from the little hills behind he has rooted out all the natural fringe of their birch and oak shrub-wood, to cover their tops with stiff circular plantations. Then his temples and statues, with their white plaster and paint, meet one's eye in every corner. I have been fain to run up that hedge, to screen me from all those impertinences, though it lost my favourite seat the best half of its prospect." But Colonel Caustic has other wrongs from the innovations of his neighbour, which he suffers without telling them. Lord Grubwell's improvements often trench on a feeling more tender than the colonel's taste, though that is delicate enough. The scenes around him have those ties upon my friend which long acquaintance naturally gives them over a mind so susceptible as his. As the mythology of the ancients animated all nature, by giving a tutelary power to every wood and fountain, so he has peopled many of the objects in his view with the images of past events, of departed friends, of warm affections, of tender regrets; and he feels the change, or sometimes even the improvement, as a sacrilege that drives the deity from the place. This sentiment of memory is felt but very imperfectly in a town; in the country it retains all its force; and with Colonel Caustic it operates in the strongest manner possible. Here he withdraws himself from an age which he thinks is in its decline, and finds in the world of remembrance that warmth of friend ship, that purity of manners, that refinement of breeding, that elegance of form, that dignity of deportment, which charmed his youth. This is, perhaps, one cause of his severity, when at any time he mixes with mankind; 'tis like leaving an enlightened company of friends for the frivolous 'society of ordinary men, which often overcomes the temper of the best-natured people, and, if it does not sink them into sadness and silence, will generally make them "humorous and peevish." Even the recollection of sufferings endears to such a mind as Caustic's the scene that recalls them. I observed that wherever our stroll began, it commonly ended in a sombre walk, that led through a grove of beeches to a little sequestered dell. Here I remarked one tree fenced round in such a manner as showed a particular attention to its growth. I stopped as we passed, and looked on it with a face of inquiry. "That tree," said the colonel, observing me, "is about forty years old."-He went on a few paces "It was planted by a lady," throwing his eye on the ground, and blushing, as I thought, "it was planted He walked some steps further; looked back, and sighed, - "She was then one of the finest women in the world!" Ꮓ No. 32. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1785. I AM every day more and more disposed to congratulate myself on this visit to Colonel Caustic. |