THE WORKS OF PROFESSOR WILSON OF THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH EDITED BY HIS SON-IN-LAW PROFESSOR FERRIER VOL. VI. ESSAYS, CRITICAL AND IMAGINATIVE WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, EDINBURGH AND SOLD BY DUNCAN GRANT, 429 HIGH STREET, EDINBURGH MDCCCLXV ESSAYS CRITICAL AND IMAGINATIVE. CHRISTOPHER AT THE LAKES. FLIGHT FIRST. [JUNE 1832.] THE time was when we could describe the Spring-the Spring on WINDERMERE. But haply this weary work-day world's cares "have done our harp and hand some wrong;' and we must leave that pleasant task now to Hartley Coleridge, or some other young Poet of the Lakes. Were we not the best-hearted human beings that ever breathed, we should hate all the people that dwell in that Paradise. But we love while we envy them; and have only to hope that they are all grateful to Providence. Here are we cooped up in a cage-a tolerably roomy one, we confess-while our old friends, the North of England eagles, are flying over the mountains. The thought is enough to break a weaker heart. But one of the principal points in Christopher's creed is-"Pine not nor repine;" and perfect contentment accompanies wisdom. Three lovely sisters often visit the old man's city-solitude-Memory, Imagination, Hope! 'Twould be hard to say which is the most beautiful. Memory has deep, dark, quiet eyes, and when she closes their light, the long eyelashes lie like shadows on VOL. VI. A |