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The Beauties of Nature. BEATTIE.

O, how canst thou renounce the boundless store
Of charms that Nature to her votary yields?
The warbling woodland, the resounding shore,
The pomp of groves, the garniture of fields;
All that the genial ray of morning gilds,
And all that echoes to the song of even,
All that the mountain's sheltering bosom shields,
And all the dread magnificence of Heaven,

O, how canst thou renounce, and hope to be forgiven?

LESSON V.

The Pleasures of a Cultivated Imagination. - DUGALD STEWART.

THE attention of young persons may be seduced, by wellselected works of fiction, from the present objects of the senses, and the thoughts accustomed to dwell on the past, the distant or the future; and in the same proportion in which this effect is, in any instance, accomplished, "the man," as Dr. Johnson has justly remarked, "is exalted in the scale of intellectual being." The tale of fiction will probably be soon laid aside, with the toys and rattles of infancy; but the habits which it has contributed to fix, and the powers which it has brought into a state of activity, will remain with the possessor, permanent and inestimable treasures, to his latest hour.

Nor is it to the young alone that these observations are to be exclusively applied. Instances have frequently occurred of individuals in whom the power of imagination has, at a more advanced period of life, been found susceptible of culture to a wonderful degree. In such men, what an accession is gained to their most refined pleasures! What enchantments are added to their most ordinary perceptions The mind.

awakening, as if from a trance, to a new existence, becomes habituated to the most interesting aspects of life and of nature; the intellectual eye "is purged of its film;" and things the most familiar and unnoticed disclose charms invisible before.

The same objects and events, which were lately beheld with indifference, occupy now all the powers and capacities of the soul: the contrast between the present and the past serving only to enhance and to endear so unlooked-for an acquisition. What Gray has so finely said of the pleasures of vicissitude conveys but a faint image of what is experienced by the man who, after having lost, in vulgar occupations and vulgar amusements, his earliest and most precious years, is thus introduced at last to a new heaven and a new earth:

"The meanest floweret of the vale,

The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common sun, the air, the skies,
To him are opening Paradise."

The effects of foreign travel have been often remarked, not only in rousing the curiosity of the traveler while abroad, but in correcting, after his return, whatever habits of inattention he had contracted to the institutions and manners among which he was bred. It is in a way somewhat analogous that our occasional excursions into the regions of imagination increase our interest in those familiar realities, from which the stores of imagination are borrowed. We learn insensibly to view nature with the eye of the painter and the poet, and to seize those "happy attitudes of things," which their taste at first selected; while, enriched with the accumulations of ages and with "the spoils of time," we unconsciously combine with what we see all that we know and all that we feel; and sublime the organical beauties of the material world, by blending with them the inexhaustible delights of the heart and of the fancy

LESSON VI.

The Happiness of Animals a Proof of the Divine Benevo lence. - PALEY.

THE air, the earth, the water, teem with delighted existence. In a spring noon or a summer evening, on whichever side we turn our eyes, myriads of happy beings crowd upon our view. "The insect youth are on the wing." Swarms of new-born flies are trying their pinions in the air. Their sportive motions, their gratuitous activity, their continual change of place without use or purpose, testify their joy, and the exultation which they feel in their lately-discovered faculties.

A bee, amongst the flowers in spring, is one of the most cheerful objects that can be looked upon. Its life appears to be all enjoyment: so busy and so pleased: yet it is only a specimen of insect life, with which, by reason of the animal being half domesticated, we happen to be better acquainted than we are with that of others. The whole winged insect tribe, it is probable, are equally intent upon their proper employments, and under every variety of constitution gratified, and perhaps equally gratified, by the offices which the Author of their nature has assigned to them.

But the atmosphere is not the only scene of their enjoyment. Plants are covered with little insects, greedily sucking their juices, and constantly, as it should seem, in the act of sucking. It cannot be doubted that this is a state of gratification. What else should fix them so closely to the operation, and so long? Other species are running about, with an alacrity in their motions which carries with it every mark of pleasure. Large patches of ground are sometimes half covered with these brisk and sprightly natures.

If we look to what the waters produce, shoals of the fry of fish frequent the margins of rivers, of lakes, and of the sea

itself. These are so happy that they know not what to do with themselves. Their attitudes, their vivacity, their leaps out of the water, their frolics in it, all conduce to show their excess of spirits, and are simply the effects of that excess. Walking by the seaside, in a calm evening, upon a sandy shore, and with an ebbing tide, I have frequently remarked the appearance of a dark cloud, or, rather, very thick mist, hanging over the edge of the water, to the height, perhaps, of half a yard, and of the breadth of two or three yards, stretching along the coast as far as the eye could reach, and always retiring with the water.

When this cloud came to be examined, it proved to be so much space filled with young shrimps, in the act of bounding into the air, from the shallow margin of the water, or from the wet sand. If any motion of a mute animal could express delight, it was this: if they had meant to make signs of their happiness, they could not have done it more intelligibly. Suppose, then, what there is no reason to doubt, each individual of this number to be in a state of positive enjoyment; what a sum, collectively, of gratification and pleasure, have we here before our view!

The young of all animals appear to receive pleasure simply from the exercise of their limbs and bodily faculties, without reference to any end to be attained, or any use to be answered, by the exertion. A child, without knowing anything of the use of language, is in a high degree delighted with being able to speak. Its incessant repetition of a few articulate sounds, or, perhaps, of a single word, which it has learned to pronounce, proves this point clearly. Nor is it less pleased with its first successful endeavors to walk, or rather to run (which precedes walking), although entirely ignorant of the importance of the attainment to its future life, and even without applying it to any present purpose. A child is delighted with speaking, without having anything to say; and with walking, without knowing whither to go. And, previously to both these,

it is reasonable to believe that the waking hours of infancy are agreeably taken up with the exercise of vision, or perhaps, more properly speaking, with learning to see.

But it is not for youth alone that the great Parent of creation has provided. Happiness is found with the purring cat, no less than with the playful kitten: in the arm-chair of dozing age, as well as in either the sprightliness of the dance or the animation of the chase. To novelty, to acuteness of sensation, to hope, to ardor of pursuit, succeeds, what is, in no inconsiderable degree, an equivalent for them all, "perception of ease." Herein is the exact difference between the young and the old. The young are not happy but when enjoying pleasure; the old are happy when free from pain. And this constitution suits with the degrees of animal power, which they respectively possess. The vigor of youth was to be stimulated to action by impatience of rest; whilst to the imbecility of age quietness and repose become positive gratifications. In one important respect, the advantage is with the old. A state of ease is, generally speaking, more attainable than a state of pleasure. A constitution, therefore, which can enjoy ease, is preferable to that which can taste only pleasure.

This same perception of ease oftentimes renders old age a condition of great comfort; especially when riding at its anchor, after a busy or tempestuous life. It is well described, by Rousseau, to be the interval of repose and enjoyment, between the hurry and the end of life. How far the same cause extends to other animal natures, cannot be judged of with certainty. The appearance of satisfaction with which most animals, as their activity subsides, seek and enjoy rest, affords reason to believe that this source of gratification is appointed to advanced life, under all, or most, of its various forms.

There is a great deal of truth in the following representation, given by Dr. Percival, a very pious writer, as well as excellent man: "To the intelligent and virtuous, old age pre

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