Doctor Johnson deemed "the knowledge of nature half the task of a poet," but not until he had written all his poetry did he repair to the Highlands.

Milton allows natural science and the observation of the picturesque no place among the elements of a poetical self-education, and his practice differs entirely from that which would in our day be adopted by an aspirant happy in equal leisure.

Such an one would probably have seen no inconsiderable portion of the globe ere he could resolve to bury himself in a tiny hamlet for five years.

The poems which Milton composed at Horton owe so much of their beauty to his country residence as to convict him of error in attaching no more importance to the influences of scenery.

But this very excellence suggests that the spell of scenery need not be exactly proportioned to its grandeur.
The beauties of Horton are characterized by Professor Masson as those of "rich, teeming, verdurous flat, charming by its appearance of plenty, and by the goodly show of wood along the fields and pastures, in the nooks where the houses nestle, and everywhere in all directions to the sky-bound verge of the landscape." He also notices "the canal-like abundance and distribution of water.