norum corporum, et insanæ rerum strages: quas cùm intuebar, non urbis alicujus aut oppidi, sed confracti mundi rudera, ante oculos habere mihi visus sum.

"In singulis ferè montibus erat aliquid insolens et mirabile, sed præ cæteris mihi placebat illa, quâ sedebam, rupes; erat maxima et altissima, et quâ terram respiciebat, molliori ascensu altitudinem suam dissimulabat: quà verò mare, horrendum præceps, et quasi ad perpendiculum facta, instar parietis. Prætereà facies illa marina adeò erat lævis ac uniformis (quod in rupibus aliquando observare licet) ac si scissa fuisset à summo ad imum, in illo plano; vel terræ motu aliquo, aut fulmine, divulsa.

"Ima pars rupis erat cava, recessusque habuit, et saxeos specus, euntes in vacuum montem; sive naturâ pridem factos, sive exesos mari, et undarum crebris ictibus: In hos enim cum impetu ruebant et fragore, æstuantis maris fluctus; quos iterum spumantes reddidit antrum, et quasi ab imo ventre evomuit.

"Dextrum latus montis erat præruptum, aspero saxo et nudâ caute; sinistrum non adeò neglexerat Natura, arboribus utpote ornatum : et prope pedem montis rivus limpidæ aquæ prorupit; qui cùm vicinam vallem irrigaverat, lento motu serpens, et per varios mæandros, quasi ad protrahendam vitam, in magno mari absorptus subito periit. Denique in summo vertice promontorii, commodè eminebat saxum, cui insidebam contemplabundus. Vale augusta sedes, Rege digna: Augusta rupes, semper mihi memoranda!" P. 89. Telluris Theoria sacra, &c. Editio secunda.

"Of Mississippi, or that Northern Stream."

"A man is supposed to improve by going out into the World, by visiting London. Artificial man does; he extends with his sphere; but, alas! that sphere is microscopic: it is formed of minutiæ, and he surrenders his genuine vision to the artist, in order to embrace it in his ken. His bodily senses grow acute, even to barren and inhuman pruriency; while his mental become proportionally obtuse. The reverse is the Man of Mind: He who is placed in the sphere of Nature and of God, might be a mock at Tattersall's and Brookes's, and a sneer at St. James's: he would certainly be swallowed alive by the first Pizarro that crossed him: — . But when he walks along the River of Amazons; when he rests his eye on the unrivalled Andes; when he measures the long and watered Savannah; or contemplates from a sudden Promontory, the distant, vast Pacific and feels himself a Freeman in this vast Theatre, and commanding each ready produced fruit of this wilderness, and each progeny of this - His exaltation is not less than Imperial. He is as gentle, too, as he is great: His emotions of tenderness keep pace with his elevation of sentiment; for he says, • These were made by a good Being, who, unsought by me, placed me here to enjoy them.' He becomes at once a Child and a King. His mind is in himself; from hence he argues, and from hence he acts, and he argues unerringly, and acts magisterially: His mind in himself is also in his God; and therefore he loves, and therefore he soars. From the notes upon The Hurricane, a Poem, by William Gilbert.

stream

The Reader, I am sure, will thank me for the above Quotation, which, though from a strange book, is one of the finest passages of modern English prose.

P. 136. Line 19.

"'Tis, by comparison, an easy task

Earth to despise," &c.

See, upon this subject, Baxter's most interesting review of his own opinions and sentiments in the decline of life. It may be found (lately reprinted) in Dr. Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Biography.

P. 139. Line 18.

"Alas! the endowment of immortal Power,
Is matched unequally with custom, time," &c.

This subject is treated at length in the Ode at the conclusion of the fourth volume.

"Knowing the heart of Man is set to be," &c.

The passage quoted from Daniel is taken from a poem addressed to the Lady Margaret, Countess of Cumberland, and the two last lines, printed in Italics, are by him translated from Seneca. The whole Poem is very beautiful. I will transcribe four stanzas from it, as they contain an admirable picture of the state of a wise Man's mind in a time of public commotion.

Nor is he moved with all the thunder-cracks

Of Tyrant's threats, or with the surly brow
Of Power, that proudly sits on others' crimes;

Charged with more crying sins than those he checks.
The storms of sad confusion that may grow

Up in the present for the coming times,
Appal not him; that hath no side at all,

But of himself, and knows the worst can fall.

Although his heart (so near allied to earth)
Cannot but pity the perplexed state
Of troublous and distressed mortality,
That thus make way unto the ugly Birth
Of their own Sorrows, and do still beget
Affliction upon Imbecility :

Yet seeing thus the course of things must run,
He looks thereon not strange, but as fore-done.

And whilst distraught Ambition compasses,
And is encompassed, while as Craft deceives,
And is deceived: whilst Man doth ransack Man,
And builds on blood, and rises by distress;
And th' Inheritance of desolation leaves
To great-expecting Hopes: He looks thereon,
As from the shore of Peace, with unwet eye,
And bears no venture in Impiety.

Thus, Lady, fares that Man that hath prepared
A Rest for his desires; and sees all things

Beneath him; and hath learned this Book of Man,

DL

Full of the notes of frailty; and compared
The best of Glory with her sufferings :

By whom, I see, you labour all you can

To plant your heart; and set your thoughts as near
His glorious Mansion as your powers can bear.

P. 215. Line 16.

"Or rather, as we stand on holy earth,
And have the Dead around us.

Leo. You, Sir, would help me to the History
Of half these Graves?

Priest.

For eight-score winters past, With what I've witnessed, and with what I've heard,

By turning o'er these hillocks one by one,

We two could travel, Sir, through a strange round;

Yet all in the broad high-way of the world.

P. 228. Line 23.

See Vol. I. p.132.

"And suffering Nature grieved that one should die."

P. 229. Line 1.

Southey's Retrospect.

"And whence that tribule? wherefore these regards ?”

The sentiments and opinions here uttered are in unison with those expressed in the following Essay upon Epitaphs, which was furnished by the author for Mr. Coleridge's periodical work, the Friend; and as they are dictated by a spirit congenial to that which pervades this and the two succeeding