Another characteristic way in which Cowper presents Nature is in descriptive passages used as a background for his own meditative figure. The beautiful description of the sheltered path where he walked in winter[500] would lose much of its meaning if we were not throughout conscious of the poet’s presence and his delighted response to all the influences about him. Nearly all the passages that might otherwise be called pure description are given warmth and tone by the fact that we go with the poet, and, as it were, hear him talk about the scene as one he has long known and loved, until it takes an added interest from his personality, or we seem to see him in semi-identification with the scenes. It is the apparent equality, the comradeship, between the hare, the squirrel, and the poet in the solitary winter retreat that adds to the beauty of the spot the needed human touch. Nature is thus suffused with human experience and takes on a new interest. But it usually happens that these descriptions become, further, either the appropriate setting for a certain train of reflections on the part of the poet, or they directly suggest these suggestions. In the winter retreat just spoken of the fearless, innocent animal life becomes the occasion of a long disquisition on the lesson of benevolence taught by Nature to man. In the sheltered walk the poet finds his mind soothed and prepared for a Wordsworthian contemplation on Nature as the teacher of the wise, so that ultimately many of Cowper’s descriptions, as well as his summaries, become contributory to his main purpose. Cowper’s knowledge of natural facts was not more remarkable than John Scott’s. His range was much narrower than Thomson’s. Other men had loved Nature with passionate intensity. To other minds Nature had suggested deep thoughts of God and man. Cowper came when many elements of the new attitude toward Nature had been clearly voiced. What marks him out as holding a unique position is not only that he gave body and emphasis to the new thought, but especially that he became its propagandist. He analyzed the effect of Nature on man, he translated his personal experiences into a theory which he set himself to interpret and promulgate. He wrote with the zeal of a convert. Joy such as had come to him late in life was man’s natural heritage. Men must be called back from the perverted and ruinous life of towns to the simplicity of Nature. His theme is stated abstractly, repeated in concrete form, illustrated and amplified with the patience and ardor of absolute conviction. He was the preacher of the new religion of Nature. Robert Burns was deeply sensitive to the charms of Nature. In a letter to Mrs. Dunlop he said: