nt,
and unambitious, may have been taught things by the clouds and streams
which he could not have learned in a college, or a coterie.

Sec. 27. And in reasoning about the effect of mountains we are therefore
under a difficulty like that which would occur to us if we had to
determine the good or bad effect of light on the human constitution, in
some place where all corporal exercise was necessarily in partial
darkness, and only idle people lived in the light. The exercise might
give an advantage to the occupants of the gloom, but we should neither
be justified in therefore denying the preciousness of light in general,
nor the necessity to the workers of the few rays they possessed; and
thus I suppose the hills around Stratford, and such glimpses as
Shakespere had of sandstone and pines in Warwickshire, or of chalk
cliffs in Kent, to have been essential to the development of his genius.
This supposition can only be proved false by the rising of a Shakespere
at Rotterdam or Bergen-op-Zoom, which I think not probable; whereas, on
the other hand, it is confirmed by myriads of collateral evidences. The
matter could only be _tested_ by placing for half a century the British
universities at Keswick, and Beddgelert, and making Grenoble the capital
of France; but if, throughout the history of Britain and France, we
contrast the general invention and pathetic power, in ballads or
legends, of the inhabitants of the Scottish Border with those manifested
in Suffolk or Essex; and similarly the inventive power of Normandy,
Provence, and the Bearnois with that of Champagne or Picardy, we shall
obtain some convincing evidence respecting the operation of hills on the
masses of mankind, and be disposed to admit, with less hesitation, that
the apparent inconsistencies in the effect of scenery on greater minds
proceed in each case from specialities of education, accident, and
original temper, which it would be impossible to follow out in detail.
Sometimes only, when the original resemblance in character of intellect
is very marked in two individuals, and they are submitted to definitely
contrary circumstances of education, an approximation to evidence may be
obtained. Thus Bacon and Pascal appear to be men naturally very similar
in their temper and powers of mind. One, born in York House, Strand, of
courtly parents, educated in court atmosphere, and replying, almost as
soon as he could speak, to the queen asking how old he was--"Two years
y