As a rule, such significant poetry of Nature as appeared during the transition period was the work of men who had spent much of their youth in the country or in country villages; it was practically their earliest poetic venture, and usually the work of their youth; and, in most cases where there was an extended literary career, the poetry of Nature speedily gave way to work of a didactic or dramatic sort, in which Nature played but a small part. To any such general statement there would be of course important exceptions. Blake, for instance, was a town-bred poet. So was Collins, and his “Ode to Evening” is not his earliest work. Cowper was town-bred. He was old when he began to write, and his poetry of Nature is his latest rather than his earliest work. But, taken as a whole, the poetry of Nature during the eighteenth century bears out the statement as made. It is well illustrated by Armstrong, who was born and who apparently spent his youth in Castleton, a little village in the wildest part of the mountainous country around the Derbyshire peaks, wrote his “Winter” before he was fifteen, went to Edinburgh and then to London to study, and wrote as the work of his mature years a didactic poem on the “Art of Preserving Health.” Or by Dyer, who was brought up in South Wales, wrote “Grongar Hill” and “The Country Walk” at twenty-five, went up to London, and wrote as his mature work “The Ruins of Rome” and “The Fleece.” Or by Thomson, who lived until he was fifteen in Southdean, a little hamlet at the foot of the Cheviot Hills, the last of whose “Seasons” appeared when he was thirty and whose later work was a succession of dreary tragedies. Or by Akenside, who, though brought up in Newcastle-on-Tyne, made frequent visits to the country during his youth, wrote “The Pleasures of the Imagination” at seventeen during one of these visits, and in his after life wrote much prose and poetry in which there is no hint of the early enthusiasm. Allan Ramsay lived in a secluded spot among the Pentland Hills until he was fifteen, and his earliest important poem, “The Gentle Shepherd,” is really a memory picture. William Pattison spent his youth at Appleby, a village on the Eden, in Westmoreland, where he wrote his earliest poems. Mickel spent his youth at Langholme on the Esk, and his first important poem, “Pollio,” written at eighteen, was in memory of his life there. Bruce was brought up at Kinneswood, a village on Lochleven, and his early poetry had much to do with the scenery about that place. Beattie spent his youth at Lawrencekirk and Fordoun on the east coast of Scotland, and “The Minstrel,” his first important poem, is a record of his early life. It would certainly be a misreading of these facts to infer that to write well of Nature the poet must have been brought up in the country. Genius has the rare gift of seeing a very little and straightway knowing a great deal. It would be equally wrong to infer that poets