Chapter 7

ENTHUSIASM FOR NATURE AMONG THE DISCOVERERS AND CATHOLIC MYSTICS

The great achievement of the Italian Renaissance was the discovery of the world within, of the whole deep contents of the human spirit. Burckhart, praising this achievement, says:

If we were to collect the pearls from the courtly and knightly poetry of all the countries of the West during the two preceding centuries, we should have a mass of wonderful divinations and single pictures of the inward life, which at first sight would seem to rival the poetry of the Italians. Leaving lyrical poetry out of account, Godfrey of Strassburg gives us, in his _Tristram and Isolt_, a representation of human passion, some features of which are immortal. But these pearls lie scattered in the ocean of artificial convention, and they are altogether something very different from a complete objective picture of the inward man and his spiritual wealth.

The discovery of the beauty of scenery followed as a necessary corollary of this awakening of individualism, this fathoming of the depths of human personality. For only to fully-developed man does Nature fully disclose herself.

This had already been stated by one of the most philosophic minds of the time, Pico della Mirandola, in his speech on the dignity of man. God, he tells us, made man at the close of creation to know the laws of the universe, to love its beauty, to admire its greatness. He bound him to no fixed place, to no prescribed form of work, and by no iron necessity; but gave him freedom to will and to move.

'I have set thee,' said the Creator to Adam, 'in the midst of the world, that thou mayest the more easily behold and see all that is therein. I created thee a being neither heavenly nor earthly, neither mortal nor immortal, only that thou mightest be free to shape and to overcome thyself. Thou mayest sink into a beast, and be born again to the Divine likeness. The brutes bring with them from their mothers' body what they will carry with them as long as they live; the higher spirits are from the beginning, or soon after, what they will be for ever. To thee alone is given a growth and a development depending on thine own free will. Thou bearest in thee the germs of a universal life.'

The best men of the Renaissance realized this ideal of an all-round development, and it was the glory of Italy in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, that she found a new realm in the inner man at the very time that her discoveries across the seas were enlarging the boundaries of the external world, and her science was studying it. Mixed as the motives of the discoverers must have been, like those of the crusaders before them, and probably, for the most part, self-interested, it is easy to imagine the surprise they must have felt at seeing ignorant people, who, to quote Peter Martyr (de rebus oceanicis):[1]

Naked, without weights or measures or death-dealing money, live in a Golden Age without laws, without slanderous judges, without the scales of the balance. Contented with Nature, they spend their lives utterly untroubled for the future.... Theirs is a Golden Age; they do not enclose their farms with trench or wall or hurdle; their gardens are open. Without laws, without the scales of the balance, without judges, they guard the right by Nature's light.

And their wonder at the novelties in climate and vegetation, the strange forests, brilliant birds, and splendid stars of the tropics, must have been no less.

Yet it is one thing to feel, and another to find words to convey the feeling to others; and the explorers often expressed regret for their lack of skill in this respect.

Also, and this is more important in criticizing what they wrote, these seamen were mostly simple, unlettered folk, to whom a country's wealth in natural products and their practical value made the strongest appeal, and whose admiration of bays, harbours, trees, fields of grain, etc., was measured by the same standard of utility. Even such unskilled reporters did not entirely fail to refer to the beauty of Nature; but had it not been for the original and powerful mind of Christopher Columbus, we should have had little more in the way of description than 'pleasant,' 'pretty,' and such words.

Marco Polo described his journey to the coast of Cormos[2] in very matter-of-fact fashion, but not without a touch of satisfaction at the peculiarities of the place:

You then approach the very beautiful plain of Formosa, watered by fine rivers, with plantations of the date palms, and having the air filled with francolins, parrots, and other birds unknown to our climate. You ride two days to it, and then arrive at the ocean, on which there is a city and a fort named Cormos. The ships of India bring thither all kinds of spiceries, precious stones, and pearls, cloths of silk and gold, elephants' teeth, and many other articles.... They sow wheat, barley, and other kinds of grain in the month of November, and reap them in March, when they become ripe and perfect; but none except the date will endure till May, being dried up by the extreme heat.

Elsewhere he wrote of scenery in the same strain: of the Persian deserts, and the green table-lands and wild gorges of Badachshan, Japan with its golden roofed palaces, paradisaical Sunda Islands with their 'abundance of treasure and costly spices,' Java the less with its eight kingdoms, etc.; but naturally his chief interest was given to the manners and customs of the various races, and the fertility and uses of their countries.

In Bishop Osorio's _History of Emmanuel, King of Portugal_, we see some pleasure in the beauties of Nature peeping through the matter-of-fact tone of the day.

Thus, speaking of the companions of Vasco da Gama, he says that they admired the far coast of Africa:

They descried some little islands, which appeared extremely pleasant; the trees were lofty, the meadows of a beautiful verdure, and great numbers of cattle frisked about everywhere; they could see the inhabitants walking upon the shore in vast numbers....

Of Mozambique he says:

The palm trees are of a great height, covered with long prickly leaves; broad-spreading boughs afford an agreeable shade, and bear nuts of a great size, called cocoes.

Of Melinda:

The city stands in a beautiful plain, surrounded with a variety of fine gardens; these are stocked with all sorts of trees, especially the orange, the flowers of which yield a most graceful diffusive smell. The country is rich and plentiful, abounding not only with tame and domestic cattle, but with game of all kinds, which the natives hunt down or take with nets.

Of Zanzibar:

The soil of this place is rich and fertile, and it abounds with springs of the most excellent water; the whole island is covered with beautiful woods, which are extremely fragrant from the many wild citrons growing there, which diffuse the most grateful scent.

Of Brazil, which is 'extremely pleasant and the soil fruitful':

Clothed with a beautiful verdure, covered with tall trees, abounding with plenty of excellent water ... and so healthy that the inhabitants make no use of medicines, for almost all who die here are not cut off by any distemper, but worn out by age. Here are many large rivers, besides a vast number of delightful springs. The plains are large and spacious, and afford excellent pasture.... In short, the whole country affords a most beautiful prospect, being diversified with hills and valleys, and these covered with thick shady woods stocked with great variety of trees, many of which our people were quite strangers to: of these there was one of a particular nature, the leaves of which, when cut, sent forth a kind of balsam. The trees used in dyeing scarlet grow here in great plenty and to a great height. The soil likewise produces the most useful plants.

Of Ormuz, near Arabia:

The name of the island seems to be taken from the ancient city of Armuza in Caramania ... the place is sandy and barren, and the soil so very poor that it produces nothing fit for human sustenance, neither by nature nor by the most laborious cultivation ... yet here you might see greater plenty of these, as well as all luxurious superfluities, than in most other countries of a richer and more fertile soil, for the place, poor in itself, having become the great mart for the commodities of India, Persia, and Arabia, was thus abundantly stocked with the produce of all these countries.

Peter Martyr's[3] point of view was much the same. He was full of surprise at the splendour round him, and the advantages such fertility offered to husbandry:

Thus after a few days with cheerful hearts they espied the land long looked for....

As they coasted along by the shore of certain of these islands, they heard nightingales sing in the thick woods in the month of November.

They found also great rivers of fresh water and natural havens of capacity to harbour great navies of ships.... They found there wild geese, turtle-doves, and ducks, much greater than ours, and as white as swans, with heads of purple colour. Also popinjays, of the which some are green, some yellow, and having their feathers intermingled with green, yellow, and purple, which varieties delighted the sense not a little.... They entered into a main large sea, having in it innumerable islands, marvellously differing one from another; for some of them were very fruitful, full of herbs and trees, other some very dry, barren, and rough, with high rocky mountains of stone, whereof some were of bright blue, or azurine colour, and other glistening white.

He filled a whole page with descriptions of the wonderful wealth of flowers, fruit, and vegetables of all kinds, which the ground yields even in February. The richness of the prairie grass, the charm of the rivers, the wealth of fruit, the enormous size of the trees (with a view to native houses), the various kinds of pines, palms, and chestnuts, and their uses, the immense downfall of water carried to the sea by the rivers--all this he noted with admiration; but industrial interest outweighed the æsthetic, even when he called Spain happier than Italy. There is no trace of any real feeling for scenery, any grasp of landscape as a whole; he did not advance beyond scattered details, which attracted his eye chiefly for their material uses.

But there is real delight in Nature in the account of a journey to the Cape Verde Islands, undertaken on the suggestion of Henry the Navigator by Aloise da Mosto,[4] an intelligent Venetian nobleman:

Cape de Verde is so called because the Portuguese, who had discovered it about a year before, found it covered with trees, which continue green all the year round. This is a high and beautiful Cape, which runs a good length into the sea, and has two hills or little mountains at the point thereof. There are several villages of negroes from Senega, on and about the promontory, who dwell in thatched houses close to the shore, and in sight of those who sail by.... The coast is all low and full of fine large trees, which are constantly green; that is, they never wither as those in Europe do, for the new leaves grow before the old ones fall off. These trees are so near the shore that they seem to drink out of the sea. It is a most beautiful coast to behold, and the author, who had sailed both in the East and West, never saw any comparable with it.

As Ruge says:

The delight of this solid and prudent citizen of Strasburg in the beauty of the tropics is lost in translation, but very evident in the original account.[5]

After reading it, we cannot quite say with Humboldt that Columbus was the very first to give fluent expression to Nature's beauty on the shores of the New World; none the less, and apart from his importance in other respects, he remains the chief representative of his time in the matter. Humboldt noted this in his critical examination of the history of geography in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, in which he pointed out his deep feeling for Nature, and also, what only those who know the difficulties of language at the time can appreciate, the beauty and simplicity of his expression of it.[6]

Columbus is a striking example of the fact that a man's openness to Nature increases with his general inner growth. No one doubts that uneducated sailors, like other unlettered people, are vividly impressed by fine scenery, especially when it is new to them, if they possess a spark of mental refinement. They have the feeling, but are unable to express it in words. But, as Humboldt says, feeling improves speech; with increased culture, the power of expression increases.

We owe a debt of gratitude to Fernandez de Navarrete[7] for the Diary in which we can trace Columbus' love for Nature increasing to 'a deep and poetic feeling for the majesty of creation.'

He wrote, October 8th, 1492, in his diary:

'Thanks be to God,' says the Admiral, 'the air is very soft like the April at Seville, and it is a pleasure to be there, so balmy are the breezes.'

And Humboldt says:

The physiognomy and forms of the vegetation, the impenetrable thickets of the forests, in which one can scarcely distinguish the stems to which the several blossoms and leaves belong, the wild luxuriance of the flowering soil along the humid shores, and the rose-coloured flamingoes which, fishing at early morning at the mouth of the rivers, impart animation to the scenery,--all in turn arrested the attention of the old mariner as he sailed along the shores of Cuba, between the small Lucayan Islands and the Jardinillos.

Each new country seemed to him more beautiful than the last; he complained that he could not find new words in which to give the Queen an impression of the beauty of the Cuban coast.

It will repay us to examine the Diary more closely, since Humboldt only treated it shortly and in scattered extracts, and it has been partly falsified, unintentionally, by attempts to modernize the language instead of adhering to literal translation. What Peschel says, for instance, is pretty but distinctly exaggerated:

Columbus was never weary of listening to the nightingales, comparing the genial Indian climate with the Andalusian spring, and admiring the luxuriant wilderness on these humid shores, with their dense vegetation and forests so rich in all kinds of plants, and alive with swarms of parrots ... with an open eye for all the beauties of Nature and all the wonders of creation, he looked at the splendour of the tropics very much as a tender father looks into the bright eyes of his child.[8]

The Diary of November 3rd says:

He could see nothing, owing to the dense foliage of the trees, which were very fresh and odoriferous; so that he felt no doubt that there were aromatic herbs among them. He said that all he saw was so beautiful that his eyes could never tire of gazing upon such loveliness, nor his ears of listening to the songs of birds.

November 14th:

He saw so many islands that he could not count them all, with very high land covered with trees of many kinds and an infinite number of palms. He was much astonished to see so many lofty islands, and assured the Sovereigns that the mountains and islands he had seen since yesterday seemed to him to be second to none in the world, so high and clear of clouds and snow, with the sea at their bases so deep.

November 25th:

He saw a large stream of beautiful water falling from the mountains above, with a loud noise.... Just then the sailor boys called out that they had found large pines. The Admiral looked up the hill and saw that they were so wonderfully large, that he could not exaggerate their height and straightness, like stout yet fine spindles. He perceived that here there was material for great store of planks and masts for the largest ships in Spain ... the mountains are very high, whence descend many limpid streams, and all the hills are covered with pines, and an infinity of diverse and beautiful trees.

November 27th:

The freshness and beauty of the trees, the clearness of the water and the birds, made it all so delightful that he wished never to leave them. He said to the men who were with him that to give a true relation to the Sovereigns of the things they had seen, a thousand tongues would not suffice, nor his hand to write it, for that it was like a scene of enchantment.

December 13th:

The nine men well armed, whom he sent to explore a certain place, said, with regard to the beauty of the land they saw, that the best land in Castille could not be compared with it. The Admiral also said that there was no comparison between them, nor did the Plain of Cordova come near them, the difference being as great as between night and day. They said that all these lands were cultivated, and that a very wide and large river passed through the centre of the valley and could irrigate all the fields. All the trees were green and full of fruit, and the plants tall and covered with flowers. The roads were broad and good. The climate was like April in Castille; the nightingale and other birds sang as they do in Spain during that month, and it was the most pleasant place in the world. Some birds sing sweetly at night, the crickets and frogs are heard a good deal.

All this shews a naive and spontaneous delight in Nature, as free from sentimentality as from any grasp of landscape as a distinct entity.

In a letter about Cuba, which Humboldt gives, he says:

The lands are high, and there are many very lofty mountains ... all most beautiful, of a thousand different shapes, accessible and covered with trees of a thousand kinds of such great height that they seemed to reach the skies. I am told that the trees never lose their foliage, and I can well believe it, for I observed that they were as green and luxuriant as in Spain in the month of May. Some were in bloom, others bearing fruit, and others otherwise according to their nature. There were palm trees of six or eight kinds, wonderful in their beautiful variety; but this is the case with all the other trees; fruits and grasses, trees, plants and fruits filled us with admiration. It contains extraordinary pine groves and very extensive plains.

Humboldt here comments that these often-repeated expressions of admiration prove a strong feeling for the beauty of Nature, since they are concerned with foliage and shade, not with precious metals. The next letter shews the growing power of description:

Reaching the harbour of Bastimentos, I put in.... The storm and a rapid current kept me in for fourteen days, when I again set sail, but not with favourable weather.... I had already made four leagues when the storm recommenced and wearied me to such a degree that I absolutely knew not what to do; my wound re-opened, and for nine days my life was despaired of. Never was the sea seen so high, so terrific, and so covered with foam; not only did the wind oppose our proceeding onward, but it also rendered it highly dangerous to run in for any headland, and kept me in that sea, which seemed to me a sea of blood, seething like a cauldron on a mighty fire. Never did the sky look more fearful; during one day and one night it burned like a furnace, and emitted flashes in such fashion that each time I looked to see if my masts and my sails were not destroyed; these flashes came with such alarming fury that we all thought the ship must have been consumed. All this time the waters from heaven never ceased, not to say that it rained, for it was like a repetition of the Deluge. The men were at this time so crushed in spirit, that they longed for death as a deliverance from so many martyrdoms. Twice already had the ships suffered loss in boats, anchors, and rigging, and were now lying bare without sails.

These extracts shew how feeling for Nature in unlettered minds could develop into an enthusiasm which begot to some extent its own power of expression. Columbus was entirely deficient in all previous knowledge of natural history; but he was gifted with deep feeling (the account of the nocturnal visions in the _Lettera Rarissima_ is proof of this)[9], mental energy, and a capacity for exact observation which many of the other explorers did not possess, and these faculties made up for what he lacked in education.

In Cuba alone, he distinguishes seven or eight different species of palm more beautiful and taller than the date tree; he informs his learned friend Anghiera that he has seen pines and palms wonderfully associated together in one and the same plain, and he even so acutely observed the vegetation around him, that he was the first to notice that there were pines in the mountains of Cibao, whose fruits are not fir cones but berries like the olives of the Axarafe de Sevilla.

(_Cosmos._)

Most of Vespucci's narratives of travel, especially his letters to the Medici, only contain adventures and descriptions of manners and customs. He lacked the originality and enthusiasm which gave the power of the wing to Columbus.

That imposing Portuguese poem, the _Lusiad_ of Camoens, is full of jubilation over the discovery of the New World. Camoens made his notes of foreign places at first hand; he had served as a soldier, fought at the foot of Atlas in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, had doubled the Cape twice, and, inspired by a deep love for Nature, had spent sixteen years in examining the phenomena of the ocean on the Indian and Chinese shores. He was a great sea painter. His poetic and inventive power remind one at times of Dante--for instance, in the description of the Dream Face; and he pictures foreign lands with the clearness and detail of the discoverers and later travellers. Here and there his poetry is like the Diary of Columbus translated into verse--epic verse.

He had the same fiery spirit, nerve, and fresh insight, with the poet's gift added.

(None the less, the classic apparatus of deities in Thetys' _Apology_ is no adornment.)

Comparisons from Nature and animals are few but detailed:

E'en as the prudent ants which towards their nest Bearing the apportioned heavy burden go, Exercise all their forces at their best, Hostile to hostile winter's frost and snow; There, all their toils and labours stand confessed, There, never looked-for energy they show; So, from the Lusitanians to avert Their horrid Fate, the nymphs their power exert.

Thus, as in some sequestered sylvan mere The frogs (the Lycian people formerly), If that by chance some person should appear While out of water they incautious be, Awake the pool by hopping here and there, To fly the danger which they deem they see, And gathering to some safe retreat they know, Only their heads above the water show--So fly the Moors.

E'en as when o'er the parching flame there glows A flame, which may from some chance cause ignite, (All while the whistling, puffing Boreas blows), Fanned by the wind sets all the growth alight, The shepherd's group, lying in their repose Of quiet sleep, aroused in wild afright At crackling flames that spread both wide and high, Gather their goods and to the village fly; So doth the Moor.

E'en as the daisy which once brightly smiled, Plucked by unruly hands before its hour, And harshly treated by the careless child, All in her chaplet tied with artless power. Droops, of its colour and its scent despoiled, So seems this pale and lifeless damsel flower; The roses of her lips are dry and dead, With her sweet life the mingled white and red.

The following simile reminds us of the far-fetched comparison of Apollonios Rhodios[11]:

As the reflected lustre from the bright Steel mirror, or of beauteous crystal fine, Which, being stricken by the solar light, Strikes back and on some other part doth shine; And when, to please the child's vain curious sight, Moved o'er the house, as may his hand incline, Dances on walls and roof and everywhere, Restless and tremulous, now here now there, So did the wandering judgment fluctuate.

He says of Diana:

And, as confronted on her way she pressed, So beautiful her form and bearing were, That everything that saw her love confessed, The stars, the heaven, and the surrounding air.

The Indus and Ganges are personified in stanza xiv. 74, the Cape in v. 50.

His time references are mostly mixed up with ancient mythology:

As soon, however, as the enamelled morn O'er the calm heaven her lovely looks outspread, Opening to bright Hyperion, new-born, Her purple portals as he raised his head, Then the whole fleet their ships with flags adorn.

and:

So soon, however, as great Sol has spread His rays o'er earth, whom instantly to meet, Her purple brow Aurora rising shews, And rudely life around the horizon throws.

He is at his best in writing of the sea.

He says of the explorers on first setting sail:

Now were they sailing o'er wide ocean bright, The restless waves dividing as they flew; The winds were breathing prosperous and light, The vessels' hollow sails were filled to view; The seas were covered o'er with foaming white Where the advancing prows were cutting through The consecrated waters of the deep.... Thus went we forth these unknown seas to explore, Which by no people yet explored had been; Seeing new isles and climes which long before Great Henry, first discoverer, had seen.

Now did the moon in purest lustre rise On Neptune's silvery waves her beams to pour, With stars attendant glittered all the skies, E'en like a meadow daisy-spangled o'er; The fury of the winds all peaceful lies In the dark caverns close along the shore, But still the night-watch constant vigils keep, As long had been their custom on the deep.

To tell thee of the dangers of the sea At length, which human understanding scare, Thunder-storms, sudden, dreadful in degree, Lightnings, which seem to set on fire the air, Dark floods of rain, nights of obscurity, Rollings of thunder which the world would tear, Were not less labour than a great mistake, E'en if I had an iron voice to speak.

He describes the electric fires of St Elmo and the gradual development of the waterspout:

I saw, and clearly saw, the living light Which sailors everywhere as sacred hold In time of storm and crossing winds that fight, Of tempest dark and desperation cold; Nor less it was to all a marvel quite, And matter surely to alarm the bold, To observe the sea-clouds, with a tube immense, Suck water up from Ocean's deep expanse.... A fume or vapour thin and subtle rose, And by the wind begin revolving there; Thence to the topmost clouds a tube it throws, But of a substance so exceeding rare.... But when it was quite gorged it then withdrew The foot that on the sea beneath had grown, And o'er the heavens in fine it raining flew, The jacent waters watering with its own.

The storm at sea reminds us of Æschylus in splendour:

The winds were such, that scarcely could they shew With greater force or greater rage around, Than if it were this purpose then to blow The mighty tower of Babel to the ground.... Now rising to the clouds they seem to go O'er the wild waves of Neptune borne on end; Now to the bowels of the deep below; It seems to all their senses, they descend; Notus and Auster, Boreas, Aquila, The very world's machinery would rend; While flashings fire the black and ugly night And shed from pole to pole a dazzling light.... But now the star of love beamed forth its ray, Before the sun, upon the horizon clear, And visited, as messenger of day, The earth and spreading sea, with brow to cheer....

And, as it subsides:

The mountains that we saw at first appeared, In the far view, like clouds and nothing more.

Off the coast of India:

Now o'er the hills broke forth the morning light Where Ganges' stream is murmuring heard to flow, Free from the storm and from the first sea's fight, Vain terror from their hearts is banished now.

His magic island, the Ilha of Venus, could only have been imagined by a poet who had travelled widely. All the delights of the New World are there, with the vegetation of Southern Europe added. It is a poet's triumphant rendering of impressions which the discoverers so often felt their inability to convey:

From far they saw the island fresh and fair, Which Venus o'er the waters guiding drove (E'en as the wind the canvas white doth bear).... Where the coast forms a bay for resting-place, Curved and all quiet, and whose shining sand Is painted with red shells by Venus' hand.... Three beauteous mounts rise nobly to the view, Lifting with graceful pride their sweeling head, O'er which enamelled grass adorning grew. In this delightful lovely island glad, Bright limpid streams their rushing waters threw From heights with rich luxuriant verdure clad, 'Midst the white rocks above, their source derive, The streams sonorous, sweet, and fugitive.... A thousand trees toward heaven their summits raise, With fruits odoriferous and fair; The orange in its produce bright displays The tint that Daphne carried in her hair; The citron on the ground its branches lays, Laden with yellow weights it cannot bear; The beauteous melons, which the whole perfume The virgin bosom in their form assume. The forest trees, which on the hills combine To ennoble them with leafy hair o'ergrown, Are poplars of Alcides; laurels shine, The which the shining God loved as his own; Myrtles of Cytherea with the pine Of Cybele, by other love o'erthrown; The spreading cypress tree points out where lies The seat of the ethereal paradise.... Pomegranates rubicund break forth and shine, A tint whereby thou, ruby, losest sheen. 'Twixt the elm branches hangs the jocund vine, With branches some of red and some of green.... Then the refined and splendid tapestry, Covering the rustic ground beneath the feet, Makes that of Achemeina dull to be, But makes the shady valley far more sweet. Cephisian flowers with head inclined we see About the calm and lucid lake's retreat.... 'Twas difficult to fancy which was true, Seeing on heaven and earth all tints the same, If fair Aurora gave the flowers their time, Or from the lovely flowers to her it came; Flora and Zephyr there in painting drew The violets tinted, as of lovers' flame, The iris, and the rose all fair and fresh E'en as it doth on cheek of maiden blush.... Along the water sings the snow-white swan, While from the branch respondeth Philomel.... Here, in its bill, to the dear nest, with care, The rapid little bird the food doth bear.

Subjective feeling for Nature is better displayed in the lyric than the epic.

The Spaniard, Fray Luis de Leon, was a typical example of a sixteenth-century lyrist; full of mild enthusiasm for Nature, the theosophico-mystical attitude of the Catholic.

A most fervid feeling for Nature from the religious side breathed in St Francis of Assisi--the feeling which inspired his hymn to Brother Sun (_Cantico del Sole_), and led his brother Egidio, intoxicated with love to his Creator, to kiss trees and rocks and weep over them[12]:

Praised by His creatures all, Praised be the Lord my God By Messer Sun, my brother above all, Who by his rays lights us and lights the day-- Radiant is she, with his great splendour stored, Thy glory, Lord, confessing. By Sister Moon and Stars my Lord is praised, Where clear and fair they in the heavens are raised By Brother Wind, etc....

His follower, Bonaventura, too, in his verses counted--

The smallest creatures his brothers and sisters, and called upon crops, vineyards, trees, flowers, and stars to praise God.

Bernard von Clairvaux made it a principle 'to learn from the earth, trees, corn, flowers, and grass'; and he wrote in his letter to Heinrich Murdach (Letter 106):

Believe me, I have proved it; you will find more in the woods than in books; trees and stones will teach you what no other teacher can.

He looked upon all natural objects as 'rays of the Godhead,' copies of a great original.

His contemporary, Hugo von St Victor, wrote:

The whole visible world is like a book written by the finger of God. It is created by divine power, and all human beings are figures placed in it, not to shew the free-will of man, but as a revelation and visible sign, by divine will, of God's invisible wisdom. But as one who only glances at an open book sees marks on it, but does not read the letters, so the wicked and sensual man, in whom the spirit of God is not, sees only the outer surface of visible beings and not their deeper parts.

German mystics wrote in the same strain; for instance, the popular Franciscan preacher, Berthold von Regensburg (1272),

Whose sermons on fields and meadows drew many thousands of hearers, and moved them partly by the unusual freshness and vitality of his pious feeling for Nature,

in spite of many florid symbolical accessories, such as we find again in Ekkehart and other fifteenth-century mystics, and especially in Tauler, Suso, and Ruysbroek.

The northern prophetess and foundress of an Order Birgitta (1373) held that the breath of the Creator was in all visible things: 'We feel it pervading us in her visions,' says Hammerich,[13]

Whether by gurgling brook or snow-covered firs. It is with us when the prophetess leads us along the ridges of the Swedish coast with their surging waves or down the shaft of a mine, or to wander in the quiet of evening through vineyards between roses and lilies, while the dew is falling and the bells ring out the Ave Maria.

Vincentius von Beauvais (1264) in his _Speculum Naturæ_ demonstrates the value of studying Nature from a religious and moral point of view; and the Carthusian general, Dionysius von Rickel (1471), in his paper _On the beauty of the world and the glory of God (De venustate mundi et de pulchritudine Dei)_ says in Chapter xxii.: 'All the beauty of the animal world is nothing but the reflection and out-flow of the original beauty of God,' and gives as special examples:

Roses, lilies, and other beautiful and fragrant flowers, shady woods, pine trees, pleasant meadows, high, mountains, springs, streams and rivers, and the broad arm of the immeasurable sea ... and above all shine the stars, completing their course in the clear sky in wonderful splendour and majestic order.

Raymundus von Sabieude, a Spaniard, who studied medicine and philosophy at Toulouse, and wrote his _Theologia Naturalis_ in 1436, considered Nature, like Thomas Aquinas, from a mystical and scholastic point of view, as made up of living beings in a graduated scale from the lowest to the highest; and he lauded her in terms which even Pope Clement VII. thought exaggerated. Piety in him went hand in hand with a natural philosophy like Bacon's, and his interest in Nature was rather a matter of intellect than feeling.

God has given us two books--the book of all living beings, or Nature, and the Holy Scriptures. The first was given to man from the beginning when all things were created, for each living being is but a letter of the alphabet written by the finger of God, and the book is composed of them all together as a book is of letters ... man is the capital letter of this book. This book is not like the other, falsified and spoilt, but familiar and intelligible; it makes man joyous and humble and obedient, a hater of evil and a lover of virtue.

Among the savants of the Renaissance who applied the inductive method to Nature before Bacon,[14] we must include the thoughtful and pious Spaniard Luis Vives (1540), who wrote concerning the useless speculations of alchemists and astrologers about occult things: 'It is not arguing that is needed here, but silent observation of Nature.' Knowledge of Nature, he said, would serve both body and soul.

The tender religious lyrics of the mystic, Luis de Leon, followed next.[15] His life (1521-1591) brings us up to the days of the Inquisition. He himself, an excellent teacher and man of science, was imprisoned for years for opinions too openly expressed in his writings; but with all his varied fortunes he never lost his innate manliness and tenderness. His biographer tells us, that as soon as the holidays began, he would hurry away from the gloomy lecture rooms and the noisy students at Salamanca, to the country, where he had taken an estate belonging to a monastery at the foot of a hill by a river, with a little island close by.

It had a large uncultivated garden, made beautiful by fine old trees, with paths among the vines and a stream running through it to the river, and a long avenue of poplars whose rustle blended with the noise of the mill-wheel. Beyond was a view of fields. Leon would sit for hours here undisturbed, dipping his feet in the brook under a poplar--the tree which was reputed to flourish on sand alone and give shelter to all the birds under heaven--while the rustle of the leaves sang his melancholy to sleep. His biographer goes on to say that he had the Spaniard's special delight in Nature, and understood her language and her secrets; and the veiled splendour of her tones, colours, and forms could move him to tears. As he sat there gazing at the clouds, he felt lifted up in heart by the insignificance of all things in comparison with the spirit of man.

In the pitching and tossing of his 'ships of thought' he never lost the consciousness of Nature's beauty, and would pray the clouds to carry his sighs with them in their tranquil course through heaven. He loved the sunrise, birds, flowers, bees, fishes; nothing was meaningless to him; all things were letters in a divine alphabet, which might bring him a message from above. Nature was symbolic; the glow of dawn meant the glow of divine love; a wide view, true freedom; rays of sunshine, rays of divine glory; the setting sun, eternal light; stars, flowers of light in an everlasting spring.

His love for the country, especially for its peacefulness, was free from the folly and excess of the pastoral poetry of his day. He did not paint Nature entirely for her own sake; man was always her master[16] in his poems, and he sometimes, very finely, introduced himself and his affairs at the close, and represented Nature as addressing himself.

His descriptions are short, and he often tries to represent sounds onomato-poetically.

This is from his ode, _Quiet Life_[17]:

O happy he who flies Far from the noisy world away-- Who with the worthy and the wise Hath chosen the narrow way. The silence of the secret road That leads the soul to virtue and to God!... O streams, and shades, and hills on high, Unto the stillness of your breast My wounded spirit longs to fly-- To fly and be at rest. Thus from the world's tempestuous sea, O gentle Nature, do I turn to thee.... A garden by the mountain side Is mine, whose flowery blossoming Shews, even in spring's luxuriant pride, What Autumn's suns shall bring: And from mountain's lofty crown A clear and sparkling rill comes tumbling down; Then, pausing in its downward force The venerable trees among, It gurgles on its winding course; And, as it glides along, Gives freshness to the day and pranks With ever changing flowers its mossy banks. The whisper of the balmy breeze Scatters a thousand sweets around, And sweeps in music through the trees With an enchanting sound That laps the soul in calm delight Where crowns and kingdoms are forgotten quite.

The poem, _The Starry Sky_,[18] is full of lofty enthusiasm for Nature and piety:

When yonder glorious sky Lighted with million lamps I contemplate, And turn my dazzled eye To this vain mortal state All mean and visionary, mean and desolate, A mingled joy and grief Fills all my soul with dark solicitude.... List to the concert pure Of yon harmonious countless worlds of light. See, in his orbit sure Each takes his journey bright, Led by an unseen hand through the vast maze of night. See how the pale moon rolls Her silver wheel.... See Saturn, father of the golden hours, While round him, bright and blest, The whole empyrean showers Its glorious streams of light on this low world of ours. But who to these can turn And weigh them 'gainst a weeping world like this, Nor feel his spirit burn To grasp so sweet a bliss And mourn that exile hard which here his portion is? For there, and there alone, Are peace and joy and never dying love: Day that shall never cease, No night there threatening, No winter there to chill joy's ever-during spring. Ye fields of changeless green Covered with living streams and fadeless flowers; Thou paradise serene, Eternal joyful hours Thy disembodied soul shall welcome in thy towers!

It was chiefly in Spanish literature at this time that Nature was used allegorically. Tieck[19] says: 'In Calderon's poetry, and that of his contemporaries, we often find, in romances and song-like metres, most charming descriptions of the sea, mountains, gardens, and woody valleys, but almost always used allegorically, and with an artistic polish which ends by giving us, not so much a real impression of Nature, as one of clever description in musical verse, repeated again and again with slight variations.' This is true of Leon, but far more of Calderon, since it belongs to the very essence of drama. But, despite his passion for description and his Catholic and conventional tone, there is inexhaustible fancy, splendid colour, and a modern element of individuality in his poems. His heroes are conscious of their own ego, feel themselves to be 'a miniature world,' and search out their own feelings 'in the wild waves of emotion' (as Aurelian, for example, in _Zenobia_).

Fernando says in _The Constant Prince_:

These flowers awoke in beauty and delight At early dawn, when stars began to set; At eve they leave us but a fond regret, Locked in the cold embraces of the night. These shades that shame the rainbow's arch of light. Where gold and snow in purple pomp are met, All give a warning man should not forget, When one brief day can darken things so bright. 'Tis but to wither that the roses bloom-- 'Tis to grow old they bear their beauteous flowers, One crimson bud their cradle and their tomb. Such are man's fortunes in this world of ours; They live, they die; one day doth end their doom, For ages past but seem to us like hours.

The warning which Zenobia gives her captor in his hour of triumph to beware of sudden reverses of fortune is finely conceived:

Morn comes forth with rays to crown her, While the sun afar is spreading Golden cloths most finely woven All to dry her tear-drops purely. Up to noon he climbs, then straightway Sinks, and then dark night makes ready For the burial of the sea Canopies of black outstretching-- Tall ships fly on linen pinions, On with speed the breezes send it, Small the wide seas seem and straitened, To its quick flight onward tending. Yet one moment, yet one instant, And the tempest roars, uprearing Waves that might the stars extinguish, Lifted for that ship's o'erwhelming. Day, with fear, looks ever nightwards, Calms must storm await with trembling; Close behind the back of pleasure Evermore stalks sadness dreary.

In _Life's a Dream_ Prince Sigismund, chained in a dark prison, says:

What sinned I more herein Than others, who were also born? Born the bird was, yet with gay Gala vesture, beauty's dower, Scarcely 'tis a winged flower Or a richly plumaged spray, Ere the aerial halls of day It divideth rapidly, And no more will debtor be To the nest it hates to quit; But, with more of soul than it, I am grudged its liberty. And the beast was born, whose skin Scarce those beauteous spots and bars, Like to constellated stars, Doth from its greater painter win Ere the instinct doth begin: Of its fierceness and its pride, And its lair on every side, It has measured far and nigh; While, with better instinct, I Am its liberty denied. Born the mute fish was also, Child of ooze and ocean weed; Scarce a finny bark of speed To the surface brought, and lo! In vast circuits to and fro Measures it on every side Its illimitable home; While, with greater will to roam, I that freedom am denied. Born the streamlet was, a snake Which unwinds the flowers among, Silver serpent, that not long May to them sweet music make, Ere it quits the flowery brake, Onward hastening to the sea With majestic course and free, Which the open plains supply; While, with more life gifted, I Am denied its liberty.

In Act II. Clotardo tells how he has talked to the young prince, brought up in solitude and confinement:

There I spoke with him awhile Of the human arts and letters, Which the still and silent aspect Of the mountains and the heavens Him have taught--that school divine Where he has been long a learner, And the voices of the birds And the beasts has apprehended.

Descriptions of time and place are very rich in colour.

One morning on the ocean, When the half-awakened sun, Trampling down the lingering shadows Of the western vapours dun, Spread its ruby-tinted tresses Over jessamine and rose, Dried with cloths of gold Aurora's Tears of mingled fire and snows Which to pearl his glance converted.

Since these gardens cannot steal Away your oft returning woes, Though to beauteous spring they build Snow-white jasmine temples filled With radiant statues of the rose; Come into the sea and make Thy bark the chariot of the sun, And when the golden splendours run Athwart the waves, along thy wake The garden to the sea will say (By melancholy fears deprest)-- 'The sun already gilds the west, How very short has been this day.'

There is a striking remark about a garden; Menon says:

A beautiful garden surrounded by wild forest Is the more beautiful the nearer it approaches its opposite.

Splendour of colour was everything with Calderon, but it was splendour of so stiff and formal a kind, that, like the whole of his intensely severe, even inquisitorial outlook, it leaves us cold.

We must turn to Shakespeare to learn how strongly the pulse of sympathy for Nature could beat in contemporary drama. Goethe said: 'In Calderon you have the wine as the last artificial result of the grape, but expressed into the goblet, highly spiced and sweetened, and so given you to drink; but in Shakespeare you have the whole natural process of its ripening besides, and the grapes themselves one by one, for your enjoyment, if you will.'

In _Worship at the Cross_ there is pious feeling for Nature and mystical feeling side by side with an obnoxious fanaticism, superstition, and other objectionable traits[20]; and mystical confessions of the same sort may be gathered in numbers from the works of contemporary monks and nuns. Even of such a fanatic and self-tormentor as the Spanish Franciscan Petrus von Alcantara (1562), his biographer says that despite his strict renunciation of the world, he retained a most warm and deep feeling for Nature.

'Whatever he saw of the outer world increased his devotion and gave it wings. The starry sky seen through his little monastery window, often kept him rapt in deep meditation for hours; often he was as if beside himself, so strong was his pious feeling when he saw the power and glory of God reflected in charming flowers and plants.'

When Gregorio Lopez (1596), a man who had studied many sides of Nature, was asked if so much knowledge confused him, he answered: 'I find God in all things, great and small.' Similar remarks are attributed to many others.

Next to Leon, as a poet in enthusiasm and mysticism, came St Teresa von Avila. She was especially notable for the ravishingly pretty pictures and comparisons she drew from Nature to explain the soul life of the Christian.[21]

In all these outpourings of mystic feeling for Nature, there was no interest in her entirely for her own sake; they were all more or less dictated by religious feeling. It was in the later German and Italian mystics--for example, Bruno, Campanella, and Jacob Boehme--that a more subjective and individual point of view was attained through Pantheism and Protestantism.

The Protestant free-speaking Shakespeare shewed a far more intense feeling for Nature than the Catholic Calderon.