and setting sun--of clouds and
moonlight--of storm and calm--of the changing seasons--of the
infinitely varying face of nature, are now trite and worn-out. They
are as fresh and new as ever, and will be so at the last day of the
world, presenting, at every recurring view, something to surprise as
well as delight. To each successive generation of men, the phenomena
both of the outer and inner world are absolutely new; and the child of
the present day is as much a stranger upon the earth as the first-born
of Eve. But the impression received by each individual from the things
that surround him is widely different--as different as the faces in a
crowd, which all present the common type of humanity without a single
feature being alike. This fact we unconsciously assert in our everyday
criticism; for when any similarity is detected in a description,
whether of things internal or external, we at once stigmatise the
later version as a plagiarism, and as such set it down as a confession
of weakness.

But although the manifestations of nature, being infinite, cannot be
worn out, the capacity to enjoy them, being human, may decay. It may,
in fact, in some natures, be entirely wanting, and in some generations
at least partially so. Seamen, for instance, who live, move, and have
their being in a world of poetry and romance, are the least poetical
of men; even in their songs they affect the prosaic and matter of
fact, and discard everything appertaining to the fanciful.[1] Here is
a direct instance of the materials of poetry being present, and its
spirit wanting. So common, however, is it to confound the poetical
with the faculty of enjoying it, that we find a hygienic power
ascribed as an absolute property to the beauty of that very element,
from which they who view it, both in its sweetest and grandest
aspects, derive no elevation of feeling whatever. Hufeland, who
reckons among the great panaceas of life the joy arising from the
contemplation of the beauties of nature, in estimating the advantage
of sea-bathing as the chief natural tonic, attributes it in great part
to the action of the prospect of the sea upon the nervous system. 'I
am fully convinced,' says he, 'that the physical effects of
sea-bathing must be greatly increased by the impression on the mind,
and that a hypochondriac or nervous person may be half-cured by
residing on the sea-coast, and enjoying a view of the grand scenes of
nature which will there present thems