sublimity. The boasted works of art, the highest towers, and the noblest domes, are but ant hills when put in comparison.…
“To walk along the shore when the tide is departed, or to sit in the hollow of a rock when it is come in, attentive to the various sounds that gather on every side, above and below, may raise the mind to its highest and noblest exertions.
“The solemn roar of the waves, swelling into and subsiding from the vast caverns beneath, the piercing note of the gull, the frequent chatter of the guillemot, the loud note of the auk, the screams of the heron, and the hoarse, deep periodical croaking of the cormorant, all unite to furnish out the grandeur of the scene, and turn the mind to Him who is the essence of all sublimity.”
GULLS.
It is amid such scenes as these that we naturally look for and find the next of Shakespeare’s birds, the Gull, or, as he sometimes calls it, the “Sea-mell” (The Tempest, Act ii. Sc. 2).
In no passage, however, do we find a reference to any particular species of gull; the word is used in its generic sense only, and is most frequently applied metaphorically to a dupe or a fool:—
“Why, ’tis a gull, a fool!”
Henry V. Act iii. Sc. 6.
The gull is said to have derived its name from its voracious habits, i.e., from “gulo—ōnis,” a gormandizer. Tooke holds that gull, guile, wile, and guilt, are all from the Anglo-Saxon “wiglian, gewiglian,” that by which any one is deceived. Archdeacon Nares suggests that gull is from the old French guiller.
Malvolio asks:—