the principal forests have been felled. It is, in
general, far from a picturesque country. The case is different with
Scotland, Wales, and Ireland; and I except also the lake counties and
Derbyshire, together with Eton, Windsor, and my own dear Harrow on the
Hill, and some spots near the coast. In the present rank fertility of
'great poets of the age,' and 'schools of poetry'--a word which, like
'schools of eloquence' and of 'philosophy,' is never introduced till the
decay of the art has increased with the number of its professors--in the
present day, then, there have sprung up two sorts of Naturals;--the
Lakers, who whine about Nature because they live in Cumberland; and
their _under-sect_ (which some one has maliciously called the 'Cockney
School'), who are enthusiastical for the country because they live in
London. It is to be observed, that the rustical founders are rather
anxious to disclaim any connection with their metropolitan followers,
whom they ungraciously review, and call cockneys, atheists, foolish
fellows, bad writers, and other hard names, not less ungrateful than
unjust. I can understand the pretensions of the aquatic gentlemen of
Windermere to what Mr. B * * terms '_entusumusy_' for lakes, and
mountains, and daffodils, and buttercups; but I should be glad to be
apprised of the foundation of the London propensities of their imitative
brethren to the same' high argument.' Southey, Wordsworth, and Coleridge
have rambled over half Europe, and seen Nature in most of her varieties
(although I think that they have occasionally not used her very well);
but what on earth--of earth, and sea, and Nature--have the others seen?
Not a half, nor a tenth part so much as Pope. While they sneer at his
Windsor Forest, have they ever seen any thing of Windsor except its
_brick_?

"When they have really seen life--when they have felt it--when they have
travelled beyond the far distant boundaries of the wilds of
Middlesex--when they have overpassed the Alps of Highgate, and traced to
its sources the Nile of the New River--then, and not till then, can it
properly be permitted to them to despise Pope; who had, if not _in
Wales_, been _near_ it, when he described so beautifully the
'_artificial_' works of the Benefactor of Nature and mankind, the 'Man
of Ross,' whose picture, still suspended in the parlour of the inn, I
have so often contemplated with reverence for his memory, and admiration
of the poet, without whom even his