[249]. Turn the stiff screw, &c.—The harmony and imagery of these lines are imperfectly imitated from the following exquisite passage in the Economy of Vegetation:
“Gnomes, as you now dissect, with hammers fine,
The granite rock, the noduled flint calcine;
Grind with strong arm the circling Chertz betwixt,
Your pure Ka—o—lins and Pe—tunt—ses mixt.”
Canto ii. line 297.
[250]. [The windmill, &c.—This line affords a striking instance of the sound conveying an echo to the sense. I would defy the most unfeeling reader to repeat it over without accompanying it by some corresponding gesture imitative of the action described.—Editor.]
[251]. Sweet Enthusiast, &c.—A term usually applied in allegoric or technical poetry to any person or object to which no other qualifications can be assigned.—Chambers’s Dictionary.
[252]. [Anne Plumptre, who made herself known as one of the first introducers of German plays, said: “People are talking about an Invasion. I am not afraid of an Invasion; I believe the country would be all the happier if Buonaparte were to effect a landing and overturn the Government. He would destroy the Church and the Aristocracy, and his government would be better than the one we have”. Crabb Robinson’s Diary (1810), i. 298.—Ed.]
[253]. The smiling infant—Infancy is particularly interested in the diffusion of the new principles. See the “Bloody Buoy”. See also the following description and prediction: