forms in scenery, where he has a power to exercise a control over them, that if they do not exactly please him in all moods and every point of view, his power becomes his law; he banishes one, and then rids himself of another; impoverishing and monotonising landscapes, which, if not originally distinguished by the bounty of Nature, must be ill able to spare the inspiriting varieties which art, and the occupations and wants of life in a country left more to itself, never fail to produce.  This relish of humanity Foxley wants, and is therefore to me, in spite of all its recommendations, a melancholy spot,—­I mean that part of it which the owner keeps to himself, and has taken so much pains with.  I heard the other day of two artists who thus expressed themselves upon the subject of a scene among our lakes:  ‘Plague upon those vile enclosures!’ said one; ‘they spoil everything.’  ‘Oh,’ said the other, ’I never see them.’  Glover was the name of this last.  Now, for my part, I should not wish to be either of these gentlemen; but to have in my own mind the power of turning to advantage, wherever it is possible, every object of art and nature as they appear before me.  What a noble instance, as you have often pointed out to me, has Rubens given of this in that picture in your possession, where he has brought, as it were, a whole county into one landscape, and made the most formal partitions of cultivation, hedge-rows of pollard willows, conduct the eye into the depths and distances of his picture; and thus, more than by any other means, has given it that appearance of immensity which is so striking.  As I have slipped into the subject of painting, I feel anxious to inquire whether your pencil has been busy last winter in the solitude and uninterrupted quiet of Dunmow.  Most likely you know that we have changed our residence in Grasmere, which I hope will be attended with a great overbalance of advantages.  One we are certain of—­that we have at least one sitting-room clear of smoke, I trust, in all winds....  Over the chimney-piece is hung your little picture, from the neighbourhood of Coleorton.  In our other house, on account of the frequent fits of smoke from the chimneys, both the pictures which I have from your hand were confined to bed-rooms.  A few days after I had enjoyed the pleasure of seeing, in different moods of mind, your Coleorton landscape from my fire-side, it suggested to me the following sonnet, which, having walked out to the side of Grasmere brook, where it murmurs through the meadows near the church, I composed immediately: 

    Praised be the art whose subtle power could stay
    Yon cloud, and fix it in that glorious shape;
    Nor would permit the thin smoke to escape. 
    Nor those bright sunbeams to forsake the day;
    Which stopped that band of travellers on their way,
    Ere they were lost within the shady wood;
    And showed the bark upon the glassy flood
    For ever anchored in her sheltering bay.