Though the pievailiDg incidents of my latter part
of life have fixed it almost constantly to a town,
yet nobody is more enthusiastically fond of the
country tiian I ; and amidst all my banishment
from it, I have contrived still to preserve a relish
for its pleasures, and an enjoyment of its sports,
which few who visit it so seldom are able to
retain. I can still weave an angling-line, or
dress a fly, am at least a hit-and-miss-man a
shooting, and have not forgotten the tune of a
View hoiUiy or the encouraging Hark forward ! to
a cautious hound. But though these are a set
of capacities which mark one's denizenship to the
country, and which therefore I am proud to retain,
yet I confess I am more delighted with its quieter
and less turbulent pleasures. There is a sort of
moral use of the country, which every man who
has not lost the rural sentiment will feel ; a cer-
tain purity of mind and imagination which its
scenes inspire, a simplicity, a colouring of nature
on the objects around us, which correct the arti-
fice and interestedness of the world. There is in
the country a pensive vacancy (if the expression
may be allowed me) of mind, which stills the
violence of passion and the tumult of desire.
One can hardly dream on the bank of some
nameless brook without making a better and a
wiser man. I early took the liberty of boasting
to my readers, that, as a hunger^ I had learned
to be idle without guilt, and indolent without
indi£ference. In the country, methinks, I find



964 ELEGAKT EXTRACTS. P. VI.
