[1] Humboldt was the first to attack Schiller’s view. He said that after a full reading of Greek and Roman authors he found himself unable to accept Schiller’s statement without many reservations. Later Biese spoke of Schiller’s essay as “jener bahnbrechende Aufsatz,” but showed that the statement of the case was inadequate because it was based on the poetry of a single period and thus failed to take account of many phases of Nature presented in the poetry after the brief “reflexionslose naive homerische Zeit.”

[2] Biese has two earlier important books: “Die Entwickelung des Naturgefühls bei den Griechen” (1882) and “Die Entwickelung des Naturgefühls bei den Römern” (1884). In “Zeitschrift für vergleichende Litteraturgeschichte,” Neue Folge, Siebenter Band (1894), p. 311, is a valuable annotated summary of recent (since 1882) German studies on “das antike und das deutsche Naturgefühl.”

[3] (a) They express childlike delight in the open-air world. (b) They use Nature as the background or setting for human action or emotion. (c) They see Nature through historic coloring. (d) They make Nature sympathize with their own feelings. (e) They dwell upon the inhuman or infinite side of Nature. (f) They give description for its own sake. (g) They interpret Nature by imaginative sympathy. (h) They use Nature as a symbol of spirit.

[4] For additions to this bibliography see “The Journal of Germanic Philology,” II, 239 (1898), in which is an article by Mr. Camillo von Klenze giving a comprehensive résumé of books and articles dealing with the Nature-sense. To these books should be added “Types of Scenery and Their Influence on Literature,” the Romanes lecture at Oxford, 1898, by Sir Archibald Geikie, a delightful, sketchy study of Cowper, Thomson, Burns, Macpherson, Scott, and Wordsworth in relation to their environment; “The Treatment of Nature in the Works of Nicholas Lenau” (The University of Chicago Press, 1902), by Mr. von Klenze, an admirably full and discriminating study of the attitude toward Nature as shown by one of the most important German contemporaries of Tennyson and Browning; “The Treatment of Nature in German Literature from Günther to the Appearance of Goethe’s ‘Werther,’” a careful presentation of the development of the love of Nature in the half-century before 1774 (Max Batt, The University of Chicago Press, 1902); “The Feeling for Nature in Old English Poetry,” by Elizabeth Deering Hanscom (“Journal of English and Germanic Philology,” V, 439).

[5] Gosse, “From Shakespeare to Pope.”

[6] Pope, “Letters,” I, 73.

[7] Pope, “A Farewell to London.”

[8] Hazlitt, “On Londoners and Country People.”

[9] Boswell, “Life of Dr. Johnson,” III, 178 and note.

[10] Pope, “Letters,” IV, 449.

[11] Ibid., III, 346.

[12] Ibid., I, 67.

[13] Pope, “Works,” III, 226.

[14] Dryden, “Works,” II, 74.

[15] Etherege, “The Man of Mode,” Act III, sc. 1; Act V, sc. 3.

[16] Shadwell, “Epsom Wells,” Act II, sc. 1.

[17] Montagu, “Letters and Works,” I, 72.

[18] Ibid., II, 505.

[19] Shenstone, “A Ballad.”

[21] Young, “On Women.”

[22] Aaron Hill, “Dialogue between Damon and Philemon.”

[23] Isaac Hawkins Browne, “From Celia to Chloe.”

[24] Pope, “Letters,” IV, 476; cf. “From Soame Jenyns in the Country to the Lord Lovelace in Town.”

[25] Ibid., IV, 253.

[26] Ibid., II, 113.

[27] Ibid., II, 133.

[28] Gay, “Fables,” First Series, No. 33.

[29] Gay, “Araminta.”

[30] Watts, “To David Polhill.” Cf. Shenstone, “The Progress of Taste,” iv, 172; Lyttleton, “To Mr. Poyntz.”

[31] Cowley, “The Country Mouse.”

[32] Denham, “On Mr. Abraham Cowley’s Death,” l. 79.

[33] James Howell, “Epistolae Ho Elianae,” Book I, sec. 1, Letters 23, 43.

[34] John Evelyn, “Diary” (1641–1706), pp. 36, 185–89.

[35] Addison, “Geneva and the Lake,” “Remarks on Italy.”

[36] Evelyn, “Diary,” p. 126; Addison, “Remarks on Italy.”

[37] Thomas Burnet, “Theory of the Earth,” chapter on “Mountains.”

[38] Pennecuik, “Description of Tweeddale,” p. 45.

[39] Thomas Amory, “Life of John Buncle,” I, 291; II, 97.

[40] Dr. Johnson, “Works,” IX, 35. Cf. also Dr. Johnson’s remark to Boswell, “He said, he would not wish not to be disgusted in the Highlands; for that would be to lose the power of distinguishing, and a man might then lie down in the middle of them. He wished only to conceal his disgust.” See also his answer to the question, “How do you like the Highlands?” “The question seemed to irritate him, for he answered, ‘How, Sir, can you ask me what obliges me to speak unfavorably of a country where I have been hospitably entertained? Who can like the Highlands? I like the inhabitants very well.’”—Boswell’s “Life of Johnson,” V, 317, 377.

[41] Hutchinson, “Excursion to the Lakes,” pp. 11, 17.

[42] Waller, “To My Lord Admiral.”

[43] Waller, “Story of Phoebus and Daphne.”

[44] Marvell, “Upon the Hill and Grove at Billbarrow.”

[45] Milton, “A Paraphrase on Psalm CXIV.”

[46] Veitch calls attention to the fact that Shakspere showed little if any delight in mountains, and that Milton went over Switzerland without bringing back an image of the Alps which he thought fit to preserve.—“Nature in Scottish Poetry,” I, 107.

[47] Dryden, “The Indian Emperor.”

[48] Blackmore, “The Creation,” iii, 409.

[49] John Philips, “Cyder,” i, 106.

[50] Yalden, “To Sir Humphrey Mackworth.”

[51] Prior, “Solomon,” i, 52.

[52] Pope, “The Temple of Fame.”

[53] Pope, “On St. Cecilia’s Day.”

[54] Pope, “Windsor Forest,” l. 210.

[55] Tickell, “Oxford,” l. 441.

[56] Parnell, “To Mr. Pope,” l. 83.

[57] Dr. Akenside, “Pleasures of the Imagination,” ii, 274 (first version).

[58] This indifference to mountains or dislike of them was not a new thing. For further illustrations see Perry, “English Literature of the Eighteenth Century,” pp. 144–48. Humboldt, “Kosmos,” Book II, p. 16, says: “Von dem ewigen Schnee der Alpen, wenn sie sich am Abend oder am frühen Morgen röthen, von der Schönheit des blauen Gletscher-Eises, von der grossartigen Natur der schweizerischen Landschaft ist keine Schilderung aus dem Alterthum auf uns gekommen: und doch gingen ununterbrochen Staatsmänner, Heerführer, und in ihrem Gefolge Litteraten durch Helvetien nach Gallien. Alle diese Reisenden wissen nur über die unfahrbaren scheusslichen Wege zu klagen; das Romantische der Naturscenen beschäftigte sie nie.... Silius Italicus ... beschreibt die Alpengegend als eine schrecken-erregende vegetationslose Einöde, während er mit Liebe alle Felsen-schluchten Italiens und die buschigen Ufer des Liris (Garigliano) besingt.”

An interesting early exception to this general statement is Petrarch’s description of his ascent of Mt. Ventoux. In a letter dated April 26, 1335 (Petrarca, “Lettere Famigliari,” I, 481), he tells how this mountain ever before his eyes, had been from childhood a temptation to him, and how he was finally stimulated to make the ascent by an account of the wide view gained by Philip of Macedon from one of the highest mountains in Thessaly. The most significant passage in this letter is that in which are strangely mingled Petrarch’s pleasure in the magnificent prospect and his ascetic fear of a consequent undue subordination of the soul of man.

“At last I turned to the occasion of my expedition. The sinking sun and lengthening shadows admonished me that the hour of departure was at hand, and, as if started from sleep, I turned around and looked to the west. The Pyrenees—the eye could not reach so far, but I saw the mountains of Lyonnais distinctly, and the sea by Marseilles; the Rhone, too, was there before me. Observing these closely, now thinking on the things of earth, and again, as if I had done with the body, lifting my mind on high, it occurred to me to take out the copy of St. Augustine’s Confessions that I always kept with me; a little volume but of unlimited value and charm. And I call God to witness that the first words on which I cast mine eyes were these: ‘Men go to wonder at the heights of mountains, the ocean floods, rivers’ long courses, ocean’s immensity, the revolutions of the stars—and of themselves they have no care!’ My brother asked me what was the matter. I bade him not disturb me. I closed the book, angry with myself for not ceasing to admire things of earth, instead of remembering that the human soul is beyond comparison the subject for admiration. Once and again, as I descended, I gazed back, and the lofty summit of the mountain seemed to me scarcely a cubit high compared with the sublime dignity of man.” Translated and commented on by McLaughlin, “The Mediaeval Feeling for Nature.” See also Biese, “Die Entwickelung des Naturgefühls,” p. 151: “Und somit eröffnet uns dieser Brief, mit seiner Mischung reinen, modernen Naturgenusses und dogmatisch-asketischer Rückbesinnung, einen Blick in ein zwie-spältiges Herz eines an der Wende zweier Zeiten stehenden Menschen; es reagiert gleichsam der mittelalterliche Geist wider die aufkeimende moderne Empfindung.”

Another significant utterance comes in 1541 in a letter by Gessner quoted by Biese, p. 328. It shows a recognition of the greatness and majesty of the Alps, and has something of the modern feeling: “So lange mir Gott Leben schenken wird, habe ich beschlossen, jährlich einige Berge oder doch einen zu besteigen, teils um die Gebirgsflora kennen zu lernen, teils um den Körper zu kräftigen und den Geist zu erfrischen. Welchen Genuss gewährt es nicht die ungeheuren Bergmassen zu betrachten und das Haupt in die Wolken zu erheben! Wie stimmt es zur Andacht, wenn man umringt ist von den Schneedomen, die der grosse Weltbaumeister an dem einen langen Schöpfungstage geschaffen hat! Wie leer is doch das Leben, wie niedrig das Streben derer, die auf dem Erdboden umher kriechen, nur um zu erwerben und spiessbürgerlich zu geniessen! Ihnen bleibt das irdische Paradies verschlossen.“ Biese thinks that Rousseau’s “Nouvelle Héloise” (1761) “die Augen über die Herrlichkeiten der neuentdeckten Alpenwelt öffnete.” It is interesting to note in this connection that the beginning of enthusiastic interest in the mountains of the English Lake District found expression somewhat earlier in Dalton’s poem (1755), Amory’s novel (1756), and Brown’s “Letter” and “Rhapsody” (before 1766 and probably before 1760). The earliest of the Ossian poems belong in 1760. Goethe’s “Briefe aus der Schweiz vom Jahre 1779” are according to Biese the first full and enthusiastic recognition by a German poet of the romantic charms of the Alps (“Die Entwickelung,” etc., p. 393).

[59] Biese, “Die Entwickelung,” etc., pp. 353–55; Lecky, “History of England,” VI, 180–83.

[60] Biese, “Die Entwickelung,” etc., pp. 324, 328.

[61] Waller, “A Panegyric to My Lord Protector,” st. 11; “Instructions to a Painter,” l. 228; “On the Danger His Majesty Escaped,” ll. 5, 63, 156.

[62] Dryden under “Similitudes,” p. 31, and “Diction,” p. 43.

[63] Young, “The Merchant,” strain 2, st. 15; strain 3, st. 9; strain 8, sts. 13–17.

[64] For a Tempest take Eurus, Zephyr, Auster and Boreas and cast them together in one verse; add to these rain and lightning, quantum sufficit: mix your clouds and billows well together till they foam, and thicken your description here and there with a quicksand. Brew your tempest well in your head before you set it a blowing. “The Art of Sinking in Poetry.”

[65] See “Monthly Review,” XXVII, 197, where Falconer’s descriptions are said to be equal to “anything in the Aeneid.”

[66] Falconer, “The Shipwreck,” canto ii, ll. 157, 268, 346.

[67] Ibid., ll. 148–66.

[68] These descriptions rouse Dr. Clarke to a climax of admiration. “Homer has been admired by some for reducing a catalogue of ships into tolerably flowing verse; but who, except a poetical sailor, the nursling of Apollo, educated by Neptune, would ever have thought of versifying his own sea-language? What other poet would even have dreamt of reef-tackles, haliards, clue-garnets, buntlines, lashings, laniards, and fifty other terms equally obnoxious to the soft sing-song of modern poetasters.”—“Monthly Review,” XXVII.

[69] Biese notes the same fact with regard to German poetry (“Die Entwickelung,” p. 320).

[70] Cf. Veitch, “Feeling for Nature,” I, 117.

[71] Lyttleton, “An Epistle to Mr. Pope.”

[72] Pope, “Letters,” I, 178.

[73] For illustrative passages, see Montagu, “Letters and Works,” II, 464; Congreve, “Tears of Amaryllis,” l. 50; Broome, “Daphnis and Lycidas,” l. 47; Shenstone, “Upon a Visit in Winter;” Pitt, “Hymn to Apollo;” Hughes, “Myra;” Savage, “Wanderer,” i, 42, 52; John Scott, “Elegy on Winter;” Akenside, “On the Winter Solstice.”

[74] For a similar dislike of winter in mediaeval poetry see McLaughlin, “Studies in Mediaeval Life and Literature,” p. 20. He quotes as typical the following from a Latin student song: “The cold icy harshness of winter, its fierceness, and dull, miserable inactivity.”

[75] Blackmore, “Creation,” ii, 393. Cf. Wordsworth’s

Cf. also Dryden’s “The abyss of heaven, the court of stars” (“Works,” IV, 76).

[76] For illustrative passages, see Waller, “Of the Lady;” Cowley, “Davideis,” ii, 440; “Hymn to Light,” and “Shortness of Life,” st. 11; Young, “Ocean,” st. 23; Broome, “Paraphrase of Ecclesiastes;” Yalden, “Hymn to Morning;” John Philips, “Cyder,” ii, 293; Tickell, “Prospect of Peace;” Gay, “The Espousal;” Rowe, “The Queen’s Success;” Watts, “Disappointment;” Pitt, “Verses,” etc., etc.

[77] For descriptions of this sort, see Hughes, “Court of Neptune;” Prior, “Solomon,” iii, 557; Broome, “Poem on Death,” l. 151; Gay, “Rural Sports,” ii, 323; Gay, “Wine,” l. 141; Beattie, “The Minstrel,” i, 17; etc., etc.

[78] Cf. Biese, “Die Entwickelung,” etc., p. 307.

[79] The following are illustrative phrases: “Silver Cynthia lights the world,” Garth, “Claremont,” l. 284; “Pale Cynthia mounts the vaulted sky,” Shenstone, “Elegy VI;” “Cynthia came, riding on her silver car,” Beattie, “The Minstrel,” ii, 12; “Cynthia’s silver white,” Hughes, “The Picture;” “Cynthia, fair regent of the night,” Gay, “Trivia,” iii, 3; “Cynthia’s silver ray,” Addison, “Imitation of Milton;” “Cynthia, great Queen of Night,” Garth, “Dispensary,” v, 282; “Pale Cynthia’s melancholy light,” Falconer, “Shipwreck,” i, 311.

[80] The following are illustrative phrases: “Rich spangles,” Waller, “Of the Queen;” “Spangled nights,” Cowley, “Davideis,” i, 94; “Spangled sphere,” Cowley, “The Extasy;” “Burning spangles of sidereal gold,” Broome, “Paraphrase of Eccl.;” “Freezing spangles,” Tickell, “On the Prospect of Peace;” “The sky spangled with a thousand eyes,” Gay, “Fables,” i, 11; “Spangled pole,” Pitt, “On the Death of Mr. Stanhope;” “Heaven’s gilded troops,” Cowley, “Davideis,” i, 183; “Stars that gild the gloomy night,” Parnell, “Hymn to Contentment;” “Twinkling stars who gild the skies,” Watts, “Sun, Moon,” etc.; “Shooting star that gilds the night,” Somerville, “Hobbinol,” iii, 261; “Stars that gild the northern skies,” Pitt, “Congress of Cambray;” “Meteor that gilds the night,” Somerville, “Field Sports,” i, 139; “Globes of light in fields of azure shine,” Watts, “God’s Dominion;” “Orbs of gold in fields of azure lie,” Parnell, “Queen Anne’s Peace,” l. 38; “Yon blue tract enriched with orbs of light,” Parnell, “David,” l. 358.

[81] Some of Young’s phrases are “rolling spheres,” “tuneful spheres,” “revolving spheres,” “unnumbered lustres,” “sparks of night,” “lucid orbs,” “radiant choir,” “etherial fires,” “mathematic glories,” “aërial racers,” “midnight counselors,” “nocturnal suns,” “etherial armies,” “radiant lamps,” “splendours,” “ambient orbs,” “nocturnal sparks,” “night’s radiant scale,” etc.

[82] Burnet, “Theory of the Earth,” chapter on “Stars.” Cf. Prior, “Solomon,” i, 502–11.

[83] Wordsworth, “Peter Bell.”

[84] Ruskin (“Modern Painters,” III, 248) comments on Dante’s “intense detestation of all mist, rack of cloud or dimness of rain.” McLaughlin says of clouds, moonlight, etc.: “Let any reader of mediaeval poetry recall how imperceptible a part they play in it, even as plain facts of description. A line in one of the Latin songs expresses the feeling: their thought of clouds is how delightful not to see them. Moonlight, too, is seldom dwelt on as poetical; the most romantic touch that comes to my mind with it, is in Chrestien de Troyes where it shines over the reconciliation of estranged lovers. Just as we find little notice of sunrise, sunset, clouds, and moon, we find little feeling for the stars. They are mentioned occasionally in a facile way, though scarcely ever with manifest sentiment.”—“Studies in Mediaeval Life and Literature,” p. 21. Mr. Symonds says of the same period: “The earth is felt chiefly through the delightfulness of healthy sensations. The stars and clouds, and tempests of the heavens, the ever-recurring miracle of sunrise, the solemn pageant of sunsetting are almost as though they were not in this literature.”—J. A. Symonds, “Essays Speculative and Suggestive,” p. 300.

[85] In commenting on mediaeval out-door poetry Vernon Lee says (“Euphorion,” p. 120): “Spring, spring, endless spring—for three long centuries throughout the world a dreary green monotony of spring.... Moreover this mediaeval spring is the spring neither of the shepherd, nor of the farmer, nor of any man to whom spring brings work and anxiety and hope of gain; it is a mere vague spring of gentlefolk, or at all events of well-to-do burgesses, taking their pleasure on the lawns of castle parts.”

[86] Garth, “Dispensary,” iv, 309.

[87] Addison, “Rosamond,” Act I, sc. 1. Cf. a longer description in the same poem beginning, “O the soft, delicious view” (Act II, sc. 3).

[88] Broome, “On the Seat of War in Flanders.”

[89] Shenstone, “The Progress of Taste,” iii, 7.

[90] Lyttleton, “Eclogue IV.”

[91] Congreve, “The Birth of the Muse.”

[92] Parnell, “Health: An Eclogue.”

[93] Prior, “Solomon,” iii, 158.

[94] Pope, “Winter.”

[95] Marriott, “Rinaldo and Armida.”

[96] Sheridan, “New Simile for the Ladies.” (Dr. Johnson, “Life of Swift.”)

[97] For an interesting study of the rose in literature from Ausonius to Waller see Symonds, “Essays,” “The Pathos of the Rose in Poetry,” p. 368.

[98] Gay, “Fables,” i, 45.

[99] Dryden, “Works,” XI, 13; Waller, “To the Queen;” Savage, “To Bessy.”

[100] Tickell, “To Mr. Addison.”

[101] Cowley, “The Shortness of Life.”

[102] Somerville, “Field Sports.”

[103] Wycherley, “To Mr. Pope.”

[104] Dyer, “The Fleece.”

[105] Dryden, “Works,” IV, 202; IX, 162.

[106] Ibid., I, 214; V, 365; Congreve, “On His Taking of Namur;” st. 2.

[107] See as illustrative of the bee similitudes: Waller, “Battle of the Summer Islands,” canto iii, l. 24; Cowley, “The Inconstant,” st. 6; Milton, “Paradise Lost,” i, 768; Dryden, “Works,” IX, 145, 172; II, 463; Hughes, “The Triumph of Peace,” l. 118; Prior, “Alma,” iii, 171; Pope, “Dunciad,” iv, 79; Pope, “Temple of Fame;” Gay, “Trivia,” ii, 555; Congreve, “Ovid’s Art of Love Imitated,” l. 200; A. Philips, “To James Craggs,” l. 151; Stepney, “To the Earl of Carlisle,” l. 26; Buckingham, “Essay on Poetry,” l. 255; Young, “Night Thoughts,” ii, 462; vi, 516; Akenside, “Odes,” i, I, st. 2; Dyer, “Fleece,” ii, 496; iii, 413; iv, 317; Somerville, “To Allan Ramsay,” l. 24; Watts, “Divine Songs,” xx, etc.

[108] See as illustrative: Cowley, “Davideis,” iv, 728; “Isaiah, ch. 34,” st. 2; “Plagues of Egypt,” st. 9; Milton, “Paradise Lost,” i, 302; Dryden, “Works,” III, 354, 422; Prior, “The Turtle and the Sparrow,” l. 206; King, “Art of Love,” l. 1700; Pope, “Essay on Criticism,” ii, 109; “Temple of Fame,” l. 430; Young, “Night Thoughts,” v, 336; “The Last Day,” ii, 183; Blair, “The Grave,” l. 469, etc.

[109] See as illustrative: Waller, “On Repairing St. Paul’s,” l. 25; Cowley, “Davideis,” ii, 58; Milton, “Paradise Lost,” v, 215; Yalden, “To His Perjured Mistress,” l. 11; Parnell, “The Hermit,” l. 41; Young, “Satire IV,” l. 1; Dyer, “The Fleece,” ii, 648; Halifax, “On the Death of Charles II,” l. 77.

[110] See as illustrative Dryden’s use of the sun in “Works,” IV, 276; II, 148, 185, 215, 454, etc.

[111] See as illustrative: Waller, “To Amoret;” Addison, “An Account of the Greatest English Poets;” Spratt, “On the Death of the Lord Protector;” Dryden, “Works,” XI, 132; Cowley, “Clad All in White.”

[112] As illustrative of Dryden’s use of similitudes drawn from water note the following: Revenge and rage are sudden floods; joys are torrents that overflow all banks; contending passions are tides that flow against currents; fame is a swelling current; anger is a dammed up stream that gets new force by opposition; a ruined life, destroyed fortunes, are shipwrecks; love is like springtides, full and high, or like a flood that bursts through all dams, or like a stream that cannot return to its fountain, or like tides that do turn; the disappointed lover dies like an unfed stream; the mind of a capricious tyrant is like a vast sea open to every wind that blows; the army of the enemy comes like the wind broke loose upon the main; an obdurate foe is as deaf to supplication as seas and wind to sinking mariners; an open mind is a crystal brook; grief undermines the soul as banks are sapped away by streams; the voice of a mob is like winds that roar in pursuit of flying waves; unspeakable anger is like water choking up the narrow vent of the vessel from which it is poured; and so on through a long list.

[113] Prior, “Carmen Seculare,” st. 22.

[114] Ibid., st. 4.

[115] Pope, “Dunciad,” ii, 182.

[116] Cowley, “Davideis,” ii, 20.

[117] Halifax, “On the Death of Charles II,” l. 125.

[118] Armstrong, “Benevolence,” l. 152.

[119] Hughes, “Greenwich Park.”

[120] Roscommon, “Essay on Translated Verse,” l. 316.

[121] Somerville, “An Epistle to Allan Ramsay,” l. 5.

[122] Thomson. “To De La Cour.”

[123] Denham, “Cooper’s Hill.” The lines are,

Pope’s lines (“Dunciad,” iii, 169), beginning,

are a parody rather than an imitation. The same cannot be said of the line (“Temple of Fame,” l. 374),

Prior has these lines (“Carmen Seculare,” st. 22),

Fr. Knapp addresses the sea on the Irish coast in the following lines (“To Mr. Pope”):

Mallet has the lines (cf. “Verbal Criticism,” l. 228):

In Dyer we have a fainter echo (“The Country Walk,” l. 69):