“A thousand fantasies
Begin to throng into my memory,
Of calling shapes, and beck’ning shadows dire,
And aery tongues, that syllable men’s names
On sands and shores and desert wildernesses.”
[94b] “The isle is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears; and sometimes voices,
That, if I then had wak’d after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again.”—Tempest, act iii. sc. 2.
[104] Among the most satisfactory of such works, we would especially mention ‘A History of the English Railway,’ by John Francis, in two volumes, 8vo, to which our own sketch is under great obligations.
[107] The staff of an ancient Curator Viarum resembled very nearly the accompaniments of a modern Railway contractor. “Caius Gracchus,” says Plutarch, “was appointed supreme director for making roads, etc. The people were charmed to see him followed by such numbers of architects, artificers, ambassadors, and magistrates: and he applied to the whole with as much activity, and despatched it with as much ease, as if there had been only one thing for him to attend to: insomuch that they who both hated and feared the man were struck with his amazing industry, and the celerity of his operations.”