CHAPTER I.

Love of the Sublime and Beautiful in Nature more eminently developed in Modern than in Classical Literature -- the Fact striking, that the Love of Nature is so conspicuous in our Literature, more faint in that of the Continent, still more in that of the Ancients -- this Affection only developed in proportion to the Intellectual Culture of our Nature -- the same Objects pursued in Art as in Literature, the Sublime and Beautiful -- the Greek Poets more cognizant of the Amenities than the Sublimity of Nature -- Homer the greatest Exception -- Instances of his higher Perceptions -- Hesiod nearly destitute of it -- Theocritus most alive to the Picturesque -- his Picture of the Two Fishermen, of King Anycus, of a Drinking-cup -- his luxurious Sense of Out-of-door Enjoyment -- Love of Nature amongst the Romans -- one Cause of the continuance of their Simplicity of Life -- instanced in Virgil, Horace, and Cicero -- Modern Literature a New World of Feeling and Sentiment -- Difference between Longinus and Burke -- Love of Nature in the Ancients, incidental -- Ours a perpetual Affection -- Instanced in Wordsworth, Shelley, and Byron -- Originating cause to be found in Christianity -- Development of it in the Hebrew Literature -- Completion of it in the Christian Revelation -- Proofs of this 305