of human
interests before they turned to the representation of nature, and even
then the latter filled always a limited and subordinate place. And yet,
from the time of Homer downward, the powerful impression made by nature
upon man is shown by countless verses and chance expressions. The
Germanic races which founded their states on the ruins of the Roman
Empire were thoroughly and specially fitted to understand the spirit of
natural scenery; and though Christianity compelled them for a while to
see in the springs and mountains, in the lakes and woods, which they had
till then revered, the working of evil demons, yet this transitional
conception was soon outgrown.

By the year 1200, at the height of the Middle Ages, a genuine, hearty
enjoyment of the external world was again in existence, and found lively
expression in the minstrelsy of different nations, which gives evidence
of the sympathy felt with all the simple phenomena of nature--spring
with its flowers, the green fields, and the woods. But these pictures
are all foreground, without perspective. Even the crusaders, who
travelled so far and saw so much, are not recognizable as such in these
poems. The epic poetry, which describes armor and costumes so fully,
does not attempt more than a sketch of outward nature; and even the
great Wolfram von Eschenbach scarcely anywhere gives us an adequate
picture of the scene on which his heroes move. From these poems it would
never be guessed that their noble authors in all countries inhabited or
visited lofty castles, commanding distant prospects. Even in the Latin
poems of the wandering clerks, we find no traces of a distant view--of
landscape properly so called; but what lies near is sometimes described
with a glow and splendor which none of the knightly minstrels can
surpass.

To the Italian mind, at all events, nature had by this time lost its
taint of sin, and had shaken off all trace of demoniacal powers. St.
Francis of Assisi, in his _Hymn to the Sun_, frankly praises the Lord
for creating the heavenly bodies and the four elements.

The unmistakable proofs of a deepening effect of nature on the human
spirit begin with Dante. Not only does he awaken in us by a few vigorous
lines the sense of the morning airs and the trembling light on the
distant ocean, or of the grandeur of the storm-beaten forest, but he
makes the ascent of lofty peaks, _with_ the only possible object of
enjoying the view--the first man, perhaps, s