2. Natural objects are more akin to poetry and the imagination, partly because they are not our own handy-work, but start up spontaneously, like a visionary creation, of their own accord, without our knowledge or connivance.—
‘The earth hath bubbles, as the water hath,
And these are of them;—’
and farther, they have this advantage over the works of art, that the latter either fall short of their preconceived intention, and excite our disgust and disappointment by their defects; or, if they completely answer their end, they then leave nothing to the imagination, and so excite little or no romantic interest that way. A Count Rumford stove, or a Dutch oven, are useful for the purposes of warmth or culinary dispatch. Gray’s purring favourite would find great comfort in warming its nose before the one, or dipping its whiskers in the other; and so does the artificial animal, man: but the poetry of Rumford grates or Dutch ovens, it would puzzle even Lord Byron to explain. Cowper has made something of the ‘loud-hissing urn,’ though Mr. Southey, as being one of the more refined ‘naturals,’ still prefers ‘the song of the kettle.’ The more our senses, our self-love, our eyes and ears, are surrounded, and, as it were, saturated with artificial enjoyments and costly decorations, the more the avenues to the imagination and the heart are unavoidably blocked up. We do not say, that this may not be an advantage to the individual; we say it is a disadvantage to the poet. Even ‘Mine Host of Human Life’ has felt its palsying, enervating influence. Let any one (after ten years old) take shelter from a shower of rain in Exeter Change, and see how he will amuse the time with looking over the trinkets, the chains, the seals, the curious works of art. Compare this with the description of Una and the Red Cross Knight in Spenser:
‘Enforc’d to seek some covert nigh at hand,
A shady grove not far away they spied,
That promis’d aid the tempest to withstand:
Whose lofty trees, yclad with summer’s pride,
Did spread so broad, that heaven’s light did hide,
Not pierceable with power of any star;