Burford Cottage, and Its Robin-Red-Breast, by the Author of Keepr's Travels (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1835 Excerpt: ... CHAP. XXVII. These are thy glorious works, Parent of Good MILTON. "Ah " said Mr. Paulett (referring to the contrast which Mr. Hartley had drawn, in one of my late chapters, between the imaginations of men, and the works of Nature); "how deeply your observation makes me feel the frequent aspects under which we are tempted to cry out, with the great and enchanting poet of the Seasons, 'O Nature, all-sufficient, over all, Enrich me with the knowledge of thy works ' For, here, it is only to this knowledge we can look for that purification of our taste, and that correction of our judgment, which can free us from the domination of such unnatural images as those to which you refer, and enable us to put their proper value upon such writers, and such imaginations, as violate the truth of Nature, while they belie her mercy and her beauty, by their hideous representations It is only through being acquainted with the natural, that we can distinguish the unnatural, and throw the latter from before our eyes " "And yet," answered Mr. Hartley, "we live in days in which it is almost dangerous to speak of Nature, or in any manner use the term There are those who seldom hear it without impatience. I hear it from peoples' tongues, and I read it in new books. The authors of an oracular book, published but a sbort time since, imputes it (I must think as hastily as uncharitably) only to the ' shrunken faith' of our clergy, that they have grown apt to use the word Nature, or Providence, or Heaven, instead of the word God; and they place under the same reproach, even the use of the terms, ' the Deity, ' and ' the Divinity '" See above, page 289. "In plain English," said Mr. Paulett, "the complaint to which you refer consists in this, that either carelessly, or with design, speak...