Of luckless rock or prominent stone,
The substance classes by some barbarous name,
And hurries on;
and thinks himself enriched,
Wealthier, and doubtless wiser, than before.”
But men, it would seem, can no more command their moods of thought than their prejudices. The poetical vein, like the geological, will burst through all restraints to illustrate and vindicate the principles of truth. We have often repeated, recalling them from memory, as the index of our own frame of mind, while searching in the crypts of the primeval world, the beautiful lines—a hymn to Nature’s works, and the study of them—
“These barren rocks, our stern inheritance,
These fertile fields, that recompense our pains,
The shadowy vale, the sunny mountain top,
Woods waving in the wind their lofty heads,