many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne:
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific--and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise--
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

XLIII. ON THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE CRICKET.

KEATS.

The poetry of earth is never dead:
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead:
That is the grasshopper's--he takes the lead
In summer luxury,--he has never done
With his delights, for, when tired out with fun,
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
On a lone winter evening, when the frost
Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
The cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever,
And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,
The grasshopper's among some grassy hills.

XLIV. THE POWER AND DANGER OF THE CAESARS.

THOMAS DE QUINCEY.--1785-1859.

_From_ THE CAESARS.

To this view of the imperial character and relations must be added one
single circumstance, which in some measure altered the whole for the
individual who happened to fill the office. The emperor _de facto_ might
be viewed under two aspects; there was the man, and there was the
office. In his office he was immortal and sacred: but as a question
might still be raised, by means of a mercenary army, as to the claims of
the particular individual who at any time filled the office, the very
sanctity and privilege of the character with which he was clothed might
actually be turned against himself; and here it is, at this point, that
the character of Roman emperor became truly and mysteriously awful.
Gibbon has taken notice of the extraordinary situation of a _subject_ in
the Roman empire who should attempt to fly from the wrath of the Caesar.
Such was the ubiquity of the emperor that this was metaphysically
hopeless. Except across pathless deserts or amongst barbarous nomads, it
was impossible to find even a transient sanctuary from the imperial
pursuit. If the fugitive went dow