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."