He might have been answered by Moore, who shut himself up in the wintry wilds of Derbyshire to write Lalla Rookh—a poem breathing of the perfumes, and glowing in the sunlight of the golden East; and by Scott, who, in Jermyn Street, St James's, with miles of brick houses round him, produced his famous introductions to Marmion, some of which may rank with the finest descriptions of natural scenery in the language. But the way in which people are influenced seems utterly capricious. We know a writer who is always unfavourably affected by a dull, still atmosphere, and whose faculties are as invariably exhilarated by a high wind. Cloudy weather does not influence him disagreeably if it be stormy, but calm, leaden November glooms oppress him with a feeling bordering upon stupor. These are altogether unproductive days with him. If authors, however, are subject in their moods to atmospheric and other circumstantial influences, it may be expected that readers also are to some extent possessed of a like tendency. Mr Willmott has, accordingly, a suitable suggestive word or two to guide them in their reading. He says:—
'A classification of authors to suit all hours and weathers might be amusing. Ariosto spans a wet afternoon like a rainbow. North winds and sleet agree with Junius. The visionary tombs of Dante glimmer into awfuller perspective by moonlight. Crabbe is never so pleasing as on the hot shingle, when we look up from his verses at the sleepy sea, and count the
"Crimson weeds, which spreading slow,
Or lie like pictures on the sand below:
With all those bright red pebbles, that the sun
Through the small waves so softly shines upon."
'Some books come in with lamps and curtains, and fresh logs. An evening in late autumn, when there is no moon, and the boughs toss like foam raking its way back down a pebbly shore, is just the time for Undine. A voyage is read with deepest interest in winter, while the hail dashes against the window. Southey speaks of this delight—
"'Tis pleasant by the cheerful hearth to hear
Of tempests and the dangers of the deep,
And pause at times and feel that we are safe;
And with an eager and suspended soul,
Woo terror to delight us."
'The sobs of the storm are musical chimes for a ghost-story, or one of those fearful tales with which the blind fiddler in Redgauntlet made "the auld carlines shake on the settle, and the bits of bairns skirl on their minnies out frae their beds."
'Shakspeare is always most welcome at the chimney-corner; so is Goldsmith: who does not wish Dr Primrose to call in the evening, and Olivia to preside at the urn? Elia affirms, that there is no such thing as reading or writing, but by a candle; he is confident that Milton composed the morning hymn of Eden with a clear fire burning in the room; and in Taylor's gorgeous description of sunrise, he found the smell of the lamp quite overpowering.... But Elia,' he says further on, 'carried his fireside theory too far. Some people have tried "the affectation of a book at noonday in gardens and sultry arbours," without finding their task of love to be unlearnt. Indeed, many books belong to sunshine, and should be read out of doors. Clover, violets, and hedge-roses, breathe from their leaves; they are most lovable in cool lanes, along field-paths, or upon stiles overhung by hawthorn; while the black-bird pipes, and the nightingale bathes its brown feathers in the twilight copse.
'The sensation is heightened when an author is read amid the scenery or the manners which he describes—as Barrow studied the sermons of Chrysostom in his own see of Constantinople. What daisies sprinkle the walks of Cowper, if we take his Task for a companion through the lanes of Weston! Under the thick hedges of Horton, darkening either bank of the field in the September moonlight, Il Penseroso is still more pensive. And whoever would feel at his heart the deep pathos of Collins's lamentation for Thomson, must murmur it to himself, as he glides upon the stealing wave, by the breezy lawns and elms of Richmond.'
Our author has some judicious remarks on 'Criticism, its Curiosities and Researches,' and is himself a critic of refined and delicate appreciation. We certainly do not agree with him in thinking that the literature of the last century is superior to that of the present; but we can nevertheless admit that many of his favourite writers are deserving of a higher and more reverent regard than is now generally awarded them. We would quarrel with no man about his preferences; still, we cannot hold Mr Willmott justified in such sweeping condemnation of our current literature as he appears disposed to pass upon it. It would seem, indeed, that in his disgust at 'the corrupted streams of popular entertainment,' he has not cared to make himself acquainted with the best of our modern writers. Of these he seems—if we may judge from his total oversight of them—to have hardly a knowledge of the names. 'He lives,' as he admits, 'among the society of an elder age.' Here, however, he numbers 'tasteful learning with the chiefest blessings of his home.' If he had lived in the last century, he would probably have gone back for his idols to an earlier one; and yet his remarks on taste and criticism are of a catholic nature, although his just application of their canons have this chronological boundary. We have no room, however, for his disquisition on these elegant subjects; neither can we follow our accomplished clergyman into his disquisitions on fiction, history, biography, philosophy, and its pleasures, nor the 'domestic interiors' of taste and learning. We had intended to quote some fine sentences on the consolations of poetry, but find we have not room for them. The reader will do well to get the book, and read them there. It is a work altogether well worth reading. Nay, it will bear reading many times, and even become pleasanter as one's acquaintance with it increases. Indeed, it is not at all the kind of book to be run through rapidly, and so disposed of; the thought and observation in it are closely packed and methodised; and if you wish to derive any benefit, or even pleasure from the perusal, you will need to read deliberately. We should say the author thoroughly enjoyed his work while he was engaged in it; but the workmanship exhibits everywhere the greatest care and patience. The same habit of mind employed in writing it will be required in the reading. We may describe the book as being a graceful, suggestive review of literature, considered with regard to its enjoyments. Refined, scholarly, tolerant, and judicious in all his tastes and sympathies, the author's influence upon other minds cannot be otherwise than wholesome, elevating, and benignant.