The most vigorous poets, those who have influenced longest and are most quoted, have indeed been all men of great shrewdness of remark, and anything but your chin-on-hand contemplators.

I confess I am but a novice, a contemplator only, Nescio quid sit amor nec amoI have a tincture; for why should I lie, dissemble or excuse it, yet homo sum, &c., not altogether inexpert in this subject, non sum praeceptor amandi, and what I say, is merely reading, ex altorum forsan ineptiis, by mine own observation, and others' relation.

Fifth, a meditative pathos, a union of deep and subtle thought with sensibility; a sympathy with man as man; the sympathy of a contemplator, from whose view no difference of rank conceals the sameness of the nature; no injuries of wind or weather, of toil, or even of ignorance, wholly disguise the human face divine.