Archimedes could wake as from a dream,
How the ancients would be puzzled to behold
Arts, manufactures, coaches, ships, alike impell'd by steam;
Fire and water changing bubbles into gold.
Steam's universal properties are every day improving,
All you eat, or drink, or wear is done by steam;
And shortly it will be applied to every thing that's moving,
As an engine's now erecting to write novels by the ream.
Fine speeches in the parliament, and sermons 'twill deliver;
To newspapers it long has been applied;
In King's Bench Court or Chancery a doubtful question shiver
With an argument already "cut and dried."
Its benefits so general, and uses so extensive,
That steam ensures the happiness of all mankind;
We grow rich by its economy, and travel less expensive
To the Indies or America, without the aid of wind.

Here we are, then, on board the steam boat, huge clouds of smoke
rolling over our heads, and the reverberatory paddles of the engine just
beginning to cut the bosom of Southampton Water. Every where the eye
of the traveller feasts with delight upon the surrounding scenery and
objects, while his cranium is protected from the too powerful heat of a
summer's ~144~~sun by an elegant awning spread from side to side of
the forecastle, and under which he inhales the salubrious and saline
breezes, enjoying an uninterrupted prospect of the surrounding country.
On the right, the marine villas of Sir Arthur Pagett and Sir Joseph
Yorke, embowered beneath the most luxuriant foliage, claim the notice
of the traveller; and next the antique ruins of Netley Abbey peep out
between the portals of a line of rich majestic trees, bringing to the
reflective mind reminiscences of the past, of the days of superstition
and of terror, when the note of the gloomy bell reverberated through the
arched roofs the funeral rite of some departed brother, and, lingering,
died in gentle echoings beneath the vaulted cloisters, making the
monkish solitude more horrible; but now, as Keate has sung,

"Mute is the matin bell, whose early call
Warn'd the gray fathers from their humble beds;
No midnight taper gleams along the wall,
Or round the sculptured saint its radiance sheds."

At the extremity of the New Forest, and commanding the entrance to the
river, the picturesq