But the traits of his character are nowhere developed with happier effect than in his own writings, and especially in his poems. From these we shall make a few extracts, and suffer him to draw the portrait for himself.
His admiration of the works of Nature:
I never fram'd a wish, or form'd a plan,
That flatter'd me with hopes of earthly bliss
But there I laid the scene. There early stray'd
My fancy, ere yet liberty of choice
Had found me, or the hope of being free,
My very dreams were rural; rural too
The first-born efforts of my youthful muse,
Sportive and jingling her poetic bells,
Ere yet her ear was mistress of their pow'rs.
No bard could please me but whose lyre was tun'd
To Nature's praises.
Task, book iv.
The love of Nature's works
Is an ingredient in the compound man,
Infus'd at the creation of the kind.
This obtains in all,
That all discern a beauty in his works,
And all can taste them. Minds, that have been form'd
And tutor'd with a relish more exact,
But none without some relish, none unmov'd.
It is a flame that dies not even there
Where nothing feeds it: neither business, crowds,
Nor habits of luxurious city-life,
Whatever else they smother of true worth
In human bosoms, quench it or abate.
The villas with which London stands begirt,
Like a swarth Indian with his belt or beads,
Prove it. A breath of unadult'rate air,
The glimpse of a green pasture, how they cheer
The citizen, and brace his languid frame.
Book iv.
God seen, and adored, in the works of Nature:
Not a flow'r
But shows some touch, in freckle, streak, or stain,
Of his unrivall'd pencil. He inspires
Their balmy odours, and imparts their hues,
And bathes their eyes with nectar, and includes,
In grains as countless as the sea-side sands,
The forms with which he sprinkles all the earth.
Book vi.
His fondness for retirement: