Much of this delight in Nature is in kind though not in degree like that which Wordsworth in “Tintern Abbey” calls his second period of love for Nature, the time when the colors and forms of the external world were a sufficiently engrossing pleasure, and he felt no need of “a remoter charm by thought supplied.” But Wordsworth quickly passed from this stage of pleasure to another. In his best descriptions, as in “The Yew Trees,” he gives a few external details, and then at once penetrates to the inner spirit of the scene. He is like a portrait painter who represents the features with truth and simplicity but makes the face live because he has divined the qualities of soul behind it. Now whatever philosophical tenets Wordsworth held he certainly thought of this soul of Nature, whether of Nature as a whole, or in special parts, as in some way a manifestation of divinity. In other words he saw God immanent in Nature. The classical conception also saw God in Nature, but as the remote Architect, Artificer, Lawgiver. The universe was dead, cold, inert matter. For the difficulty with which it was made to serve men’s needs the defenders of Omnipotence felt apologetic explanations necessary. We have seen that during the eighteenth century there came a great and joyous awakening to the external charm of the world. Are there also indications that the divine life in Nature was felt? Throughout the eighteenth century the usual thought of God in relation to Nature is the classical one. He is the author and controller of the universe; but there are some poems or passages or separate lines that seem to indicate a new conception. Lady Winchilsea recognizes a curious correspondence between Nature and her own heart, and says that in the quiet of a beautiful night she feels the presence of something too high for syllables to speak. There is a similar feeling in Hamilton’s description of a silent grove. In the “Nocturnal Revery” and in “Contemplation” the idea of divinity is not explicitly stated, but in Parnell’s “Hymn” the song of praise is professedly to the Source of all Nature, because through Nature the divine spirit had spoken peace to the poet’s troubled heart. The incessant and ever-present creative activity of God is clearly set forth in Thomson’s “Hymn.” Each ray of sunshine, every blossoming flower of spring, every leaping stream, every rolling orb, performs its function as a direct expression of divine energy. And some lines give a further suggestion of divine immanence. The rolling year is full of God. The seasons are but the varied God. The beauty of God walks forth in the flushing spring. Such expressions as these mark a half-involuntary poetic seizing of the new idea of Nature as the bodily presence of which God was the soul, but they do not indicate Thomson’s leading ideas. Mallet, imitative of Thomson in this as in other respects, usually speaks of God as the Creator, but in one passage touches on the full stream of universal