"of the Deep, and shall again rise above its retreating "waves-majestic Obelisks to the Power which overwhelmed "them !" The Edinburgh Reviewer concludes with the following beautiful and most impressive remarks: "It is only with life "and its associations, with life that has been, and with "life that is to be, that human sympathies are indisso"lubly entwined. It is beside the grave alone, or when "bending over its victims, that man thinks wisely and "feels righteously. When ranging, therefore, among the " cemeteries of primeval death, the extinction and renewal "are continually pressed upon his notice. Among the prostrate relics of a once breathing world, he reads the "lesson of his own mortality; and in the new forms of "being which have marked the commencement of every 66 66 succeeding cycle, he recognises the life-giving hand by "which the elements of his own mouldered frame are to "be purified and re-combined." Men on earth's sun-lit hills. From the remotest ages of Antiquity, from the most ancient records, we learn that mountains, and "high places," were chosen by mankind to approach—to appeal to the Deity; not that the Ineffable was supposed to hear his creatures the more, but that they could more abstract their minds to address Him. The Indian, the Egyptian, the Chaldean, the Hebrew, the Assyrian, and the Persian-all sought the Godhead on their Mountain-Altars. Man descended into caverns when he would pry into the depths of futurity, but he ever ascended when he would address the Supreme. There is a passage on this subject by the ancient sophist Heraclitus (it is quoted by the erudite Cudworth in his "Intellectual System,") which has, I think, no equal for sublimity of thought and expression; a very close translation is essayed—perhaps, the reader may appreciate, through its medium, something of the fire and the truth of the Original. The Heathen Sophist's belief in the existence of a God and in his own immortality, a proof of both, is too fine to be forgotten. Is there no God? can stones and altars be The only witnesses of Deity? No!-his own works are witnesses: behold Yon sun, his shrine, the eternal truth hath told! And the same heavenly testimony bears. Oh, you unskilful! 'tis not human hands Make God; His Form upon no basis stands ; His Presence cannot be in walls confined : Even now I feel my soul its end presage : Which, looking through the rents of this worn frame, Yes, it shall fatally be changed and pass : JOURNAL. CANTO VI. III. The pervading Beautiful. "THE ancient mythologists represented the nature of the "Universe, by PAN, playing on a pipe or harp, and being in "love with the nymph Ecнo; as if Nature did, by a kind of "silent melody, make all the parts of the Universe every"where dance in measure and proportion, itself being, as it 66 were, in the mean time, delighted and ravished with the "re-echoing of its own harmony. . . . She is, indeed, always "inwardly prompted, secretly whispered into, and inspired "by the Divine art and wisdom." INTELL. SYSTem, vol. i. 341, 7. IV Where Maro blest thee once. Martial assures us that the tomb of Virgil, even in his time, was neglected; and that Silius Italicus restored its long-forgotten honours. "But our surprise may cease," as Mr. Eustace eloquently observes, "when we remember that, "in less than sixty years after his decease, the house of 66 66 Pope, the trees, and grotto of which he was so fond and proud, were levelled to the ground. No-earth gives no"thing to the patriot, bard, or hero, but crumbling monu"ments; frail against time,-nothing, against man. The "monument of genius is raised by itself; it commands the me 66 mory of man, and forces its obedience by instructing, "while it delights and refines. The neglect of their sepul"chres when gone, is only a proof of the ingratitude of man"kind-an everlasting renewal of the Promethean fable; “but a proof also, that those who seek to benefit their fel"low brethren should, on this very account, renew their ex"ertions the more." The name Pausilipo is Greek, signifying "a cessation from sorrow," adopted, also, from its beautiful locality. The passage through the grotto must be improved since Seneca's time, who complains of it most dolefully; but one feels, whilst looking on his busts, that he was not one of those philosophers Who could endure the toothache patiently. V. And lo, Avernus. What a real feeling of delight is experienced whilst looking down from the road, on the Lucrine and Avernian lakes! The aspect of Avernus, sunk in a profound valley, is quietly and serenely beautiful. Its crater-form proves it an extinct volcano; and the Element of Waters now fills the forges |