summo vertice promontorii, commode eminebat saxum, cui insidebam
contemplabundus. Vale augusta sedes, Rege digna: Augusta rupes, semper
mihi memoranda!' P. 89. _Telluris Theoria sacra, &c. Editio secunda_.

516. _'Of Mississippi, or that Northern Stream;' William Gilbert_.
['Excursion,' Book iii. l. 935.]

'A man is supposed to improve by going out into the _World_, by visiting
_London_. Artificial man does; he extends with his sphere; but, alas!
that sphere is microscopic; it is formed of minutiae, and he surrenders
his genuine vision to the artist, in order to embrace it in his ken. His
bodily senses grow acute, even to barren and inhuman pruriency; while
his mental become proportionally obtuse. The reverse is the Man of Mind:
he who is placed in the sphere of Nature and of God, might be a mock at
Tattersall's and Brooks', and a sneer at St. James's: he would certainly
be swallowed alive by the first _Pizarro_ that crossed him:--But when he
walks along the river of Amazons; when he rests his eye on the
unrivalled Andes; when he measures the long and watered savannah; or
contemplates, from a sudden promontory, the distant, vast Pacific--and
feels himself a freeman in this vast theatre, and commanding each ready
produced fruit of this wilderness, and each progeny of this stream--his
exaltation is not less than imperial. He is as gentle, too, as he is
great: his emotions of tenderness keep pace with his elevation of
sentiment; for he says, "These were made by a good Being, who, unsought
by me, placed me here to enjoy them." He becomes at once a child and a
king. His mind is in himself; from hence he argues, and from hence he
acts, and he argues unerringly, and acts magisterially: his mind in
himself is also in his God; and therefore he loves, and therefore he
soars.'--From the notes upon 'The Hurricane,' a Poem, by William
Gilbert.

The Reader, I am sure, will thank me for the above quotation, which,
though from a strange book, is one of the finest passages of modern
English prose.

517. _Richard Baxter_.

''Tis, by comparison, an easy task
Earth to despise,' &c. ['Excursion,' Book iv. ll. 131-2.]

See, upon this subject, Baxter's most interesting review of his own
opinions and sentiments in the decline of life. It may be found (lately
reprinted) in Dr. Wordsworth's _Ecclesiastical Biography_.

518. _Endowment of immortal Power_.

'Alas! the endowment of Immortal Power,' &c. ['Excursion,' Ibi