" [3]
The study of Natural History has the special advantage of carrying us into
the country and the open air.
Not but what towns are beautiful too. They teem with human interest and
historical associations.
Wordsworth was an intense lover of nature; yet does he not tell us, in
lines which every Londoner will appreciate, that he knew nothing in nature
more fair, no calm more deep, than the city of London at early dawn?
"Earth has not anything to show more fair;
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendor, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at its own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!"
Milton also described London as
"Too blest abode, no loveliness we see
In all the earth, but it abounds in thee.
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