By these violent agitations his gown flies open, and discovers that this Proteus of the pulpit is arrayed in a Harlequin's jacket; and his wig falling off, displays the shaven crown of a Jesuit. But the loss of a periwig is not attended to, his denunciations are redoubled, his fulminations hurled indiscriminately around; he scatters about firebrands; and darts, pointed with destruction, and barbed with death, pierce the hearts of his terrified hearers. Wrought up to the highest pitch of seraphic fervour, fevered by the heat of his own ecstasies,—the whole man is inspired,—and mounted upon the clouds of mystery, he soars through the dark regions of superstition, settles in the third heaven, and breathes empyreal air.
The train is fired,—the contagion spreads, the cup of delusion is filled to the brim, and each of his infatuated auditors intoxicated with the fumes of enthusiastic madness.
"Broken each link of reason's chain,
Witchcraft and magic hold their reign;
Terror and comfortless despair,
And fond credulity is there.
Circling all nature's vast profound,
Imagination takes her round,
Starting at spectres,—painting fairies,
Fancy, with all her wild vagaries,