that man errs, who should suppose
That the green valleys, and the streams and rocks,
Were things indifferent to the shepherd's thoughts.
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 judgement. Hence the two following charges seem to me not
wholly groundless: at least, they are the only plausible objections,
which I have heard to that fine poem. The one is, that the author has
not, in the poem itself, taken sufficient care to preclude from the
reader's fancy the disgusting images of ordinary morbid idiocy, which
yet it was by no means his intention to represent. He has even by the
'burr, burr, burr', uncounteracted by any preceding description of the
boy's beauty, assisted in recalling them. The other is, that the
idiocy of the boy is so evenly balanced by the folly of the mother, as
to present to the general reader rather a laughable burlesque on the
blindness of anile dotage, than an analytic display of maternal
affection in its ordinary workings.

In _The Thorn_, the poet himself acknowledges in a note the necessity
of an introductory poem, in which he should have p