and
ferried over; facsimiles of the cuts will be lithographed; and the
Innkeeper of the "First and Last house in England" will gratefully
present a piece of plate (a Druid "spanning" [consider Ezekiel's
"putting the branch to the nose" as a sign of contempt]!) to the
author of "Hints for a Chisel," "Proverbial Phil.," &c. &c. &c.
But--_revenous a nos moutons_: to _the_ Logan: until it was
scrupulously pointed out, by so tangible a manner as my boy-guide
getting _on_ it, I could scarcely distinguish it from the fine
hurlyburly of rocks around. That it moves there is no question; but
when I tell you that it is now obliged to be artificially kept from
falling, by a chain fixing it behind, and a beam to rest on before,
I think you will agree with me in muttering "the humbug!" Artists
have so diligently falsified the view, _ad captandum_, that you
will have some difficulty in recognising so old a friend as the
Logan: it is commonly drawn as if isolated, _thus_, and would so,
no doubt, be very astonishing; but, when my memory puts it as
above, stapled, and _obliged_ to remain for Cockneys to log it,
surrounded by a much more imposing brotherhood, my wonder only is
that it keeps its lion character, and that, considering the easy
explication of its natural cause or accident, it should ever have
been conceived to be man's doing; perhaps the Druids availed
themselves of so lucky a chance for miracle-mongering, but as to
having contrived it, you might as well say that they built the
cliffs. It strikes me, moreover, that Cornwall could never have
been the headquarters of Druidism, inasmuch as the soil is too
scanty for oaks: there isn't a tree of any size, much less an oak
tree in all West Cornwall: they must have cut samphire from the
rocks, instead of misletoe from oaks, and the old gentlemen must
have been pretty tolerable climbers, victim and all, to have got
near enough to touch the Logan: to be sure it was a frosty day, and
iron-shod shoes on icy granite are not over coalescible, but I did
not dare scramble to it, as a tumble would have insured a
particularly uncomfortable death; and although the interesting
"Leaper from the Logan, or Martin Martyr" would have had his name
enshrined in young lady sonnets, and azure albums, such immortality
had littl