him draw, and which was new to me--that the individual characters
of mankind showed themselves distinctively in childhood and youth, as
those of trees in Spring; that of both, of trees in Summer and of human
kind in middle life, they were then alike to a great degree merged in a
dull uniformity; and that again, in Autumn and in declining age, there
appeared afresh all their original and inherent variety brought out into
view with deeper marking of character, with more vivid contrast, and
with greater accession of interest and beauty.

He thought the charm of _Robinson Crusoe_ mistakenly ascribed, as it
commonly is done, to its _naturalness_. Attaching a full value to the
singular yet easily imagined and most picturesque circumstances of the
adventurer's position, to the admirable painting of the scenes, and to
the knowledge displayed of the working of human feelings, he yet felt
sure that the intense interest created by the story arose chiefly from
the extraordinary energy and resource of the hero under his difficult
circumstances, from their being so far beyond what it was natural to
expect, or what would have been exhibited by the average of men; and
that similarly the high pleasure derived from his successes and good
fortunes arose from the peculiar source of these uncommon merits of his
character.

I have heard him pronounce that the Tragedy of _Othello_, Plato's
records of the last scenes of the career of Socrates, and Isaac Walton's
_Life of George Herbert_, were in his opinion the most pathetic of human
compositions.

In a walk one day, after stopping, according to his custom, to claim
admiration for some happy aspect of the landscape, or beautiful
_composition_ on a smaller scale of natural objects, caught by him at
the precisely best point of view in the midst of his conversation on
other subjects, he added, good-humouredly, that there were three
callings for success in which Nature had furnished him with
qualifications--the callings of poet, landscape-gardener, and critic of
pictures and works of art. On hearing this I could not but remember how
his qualifications for the second were proved by the surprising variety
of natural beauties he managed to display to their best advantage, from
the very circumscribed limits of the garden at Rydal Mount, 'an
invisible hand of art everywhere working' (to use his own exquisite
expression) 'in the very spirit of Nature,' and how many there were who
have owed the charm