Dr. Johnson praised John Philips’ poem “Cyder”[199] because it had the “peculiar merit” of being “grounded in truth.” On the whole this poem is of the didactic classical order, but here and there among the minutely accurate horticultural precepts we come upon indications that the poet was not insensible to the charms of Nature in other than its utilitarian aspects. His delight in color may be seen from his specific descriptions of apples. The pippin is “burnish’d o’er with gold;” the red-streak “with gold irradiate and vermilion shines.” “Plumbs” are “sky-dyed.” He notes the “Ore, Azure, Gules,” and the blending of colors in the rainbow. He observes the contrast between fields yellow with grain, and green pasture land. And he sees the colored edges of clouds when the sun breaks through. There is also apparent a sensitiveness to odors. He speaks of cowslip-posies “faintly sweet,” of odorous herbs, of the fragrance of apples on a dewy autumn morning, and of “the perfuming flowery bean.” Mr. Shairp credits Thomson with being the first poet to mention the fragrance of the bean fields,[200] but Philips is at least twenty years ahead of Thomson in noting this fact. We see further indication of Philips’ enjoyment of Nature in a few lines, Nor are the hills unamiable, whose tops To heaven aspire, affording prospect sweet To human ken,[201] which were perhaps the earliest expression in the eighteenth century of that pleasure in high hills and wide prospects that was so marked a characteristic of later poetry. Philips’ explanation of the satisfaction he found in an early morning walk, namely, that the mind perplexed with irksome thought is calmed by the influence of Nature,[202] seems like a prophecy of the thought afterward dominant concerning man’s indebtedness to Nature.