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were annihilated; and as if a new epoch were commenced. Another world opens upon us; and an unlimited orbit appears to display itself, as a theatre for our ambition. In viewing scenes so decidedly magnificent, to which neither the pen of the poet, nor the pencil of the painter, can ever promise justice; and the contemplation of which has the power of making ample atonement for having studied mankind; the soul, expanding and sublimed, quickens with a spirit of divinity, and appears, as it were, associated with the Deity himself. Few ever mounted this towering eminence, but, for a time, they became wiser and better. Here the proud may learn humility; the unfortunate acquire confidence; and the man, who climbs Snowdon as an atheist, feels as it were, ere he descends, an ardent desire to fall down and worship its Creator! Before our guide could induce us to leave this spot, the clouds formed around us; and at the moment in which we passed the Red Ridge, a peal of thunder murmured among the mountains. He, who has passed this tremendous rampire, will conceive the effect of the explosion, and the danger of our situation. The Red Ridge is a long narrow pass, elevated more than two thousand feet above the vale; the top of it, in some places, is not more than twelve feet across; and, by a slight inclination of the eye, a rocky valley is seen on one side, as deep, and nearly as perpendicular as the one on the other. The lightning now flashed over our heads; and the thunder, as we might have expected from the intensity of the day, rolled in sonorous volumes around us. If the prospect from the summit of Snowdon had been the finest we had ever seen, so were these the most tremendous sounds that we had ever heard. Upon returning to Bethgelart, a sequestered village, rendered famous for the retirement of Vortigern, who insulated himself upon a lofty rock, since called the fort of Ambrosius, the moon, rising from behind the crags, threw a matchless glory over all the heavens. A transition more delightful to the imagina. tion, it were scarcely possible to conceive.

THE OCEAN.

The ocean, which Sophocles considered the finest and most beautiful object in nature, fills every contempla, tive mind with that grateful awe, which bears witness that it acknowledges the hand of the Deity; and that we know the value of that religion which a French writer would call "the science of the soul," the lan guage of which is that of the mind, in unison with the affections. This vast collection of globules, and foun, tain of vapor, occupies more than three parts of the globe; is the source of circulation and growth to all organized bodies; and the general reservoir of vege table and animal decompositions, with sulphureous and mineral substances. While the myriads of animals it contains, no pen could ever number. Neither could it enumerate the multitude of shells, gems, and plants, which grow to us invisibly; and to which, doubtless, the present species, genera, orders, and classes, could not be referred. Some floating with the wind; others at the mercy of every wave; some secured to stones and rocks; some rising to the surface from the bottom; and others, sheltered from agitations, rising not more than two inches above the great bed of the ocean; receiving nourishment from its saline particles; and giv ing sustenance, in return, to innumerable fishes and insects. Thales was, therefore, not far from the truth when he said that the Deity formed all things out of water-nor Proclus, when he taught that the ocean was the cause of secondary natures of every descrip tion. When we sit upon the ledges of rocks, rising over the ocean; when we behold its boundless surface, agi tated with perpetual motion; and when we listen to the music of its murmur, or the deep intonations of its roar, what amplitude doth the mind acquire, as to extent, to numbers and duration! Amid storms and tempests it is that nature assumes the most terrific attitudes, Those who have beheld the waves beating along the recesses of Norway, heard the vast ice islands of Spitzenbergen crash against each other when contending winds strive for the mastery; and those who have had

the power of contrasting them with the tempests of the Cape, where the electric fluid, bursting from an azure sky foretells the monsoon, so admirably delineated by Camoens, feel an awful sensation while reflecting on the length of ages that was requisite to acquire a knowledge of the watery waste. Nature often speaks with most miraculous organ; and sometimes with force even equal to that of the decalogue. "If I ascend into heaven," says the Hebrew poet, "thou art there; If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand hold me." Coasting along the rocks of Portugal, the imagination listens to the hymn of "Adeste Fideles;" along those of Sicily, it rests upon the "O Sanctissima" of the Sicilian mariners; along the shores of the Adriatic, the soul inhales delight from the poems of Petrarch and Tasso; and when gliding along the waters of Palestine, we recall that awful period when "the earth was without form, and void; and darkness sat upor. the face of the deep." The ocean, a solitude more solemn and awful than that of mountains, forests, or deserts, penetrates the soul with a spirit of devotion. Every agitation produces new beauty or new wonder: the miracles of the firmament are reflected in every wave, in the unceasing restlessness of which we recognize the ever marching progress of time and, as the waves gradually accumulate at a distance, seeming to collect their strength in their approach to the shore, and fall on the beach in the form of a semicircular cascade, contemplation seems to have the power of producing ambrosial slumbers; and silently whispering to the imagination that the soul is of etherial origin and of eternal duration, we seem for a moment to be, like Enoch, translated to heaven. The rising and setting of the sun; the splendor of Orion in a night of Autumn; and the immensity of the Ocean, far beyond the pencil of painters, or the imagery of poets, awaken ideas of power awful and magnificent. Raised above the level of human thought, the soul acknowledges a wild and ter

rible grandeur; while, recognizing in the hea

vens, a

"Sea covering sea:

Sea without shore;"

Chaos seems, as it were, to have yielded to order; and infinity, in one solemn picture, astonishes every faculty of the mind. But

Who shall tempt, with wandering feet,
"The dark, unfathomed, infinite abyss,
"And, through the palpable obscure, find out
"His uncouth way, or spread his airy flight,
"Upborne with indefatigable wings,
"Over the vast abrupt!"

In the Ocean we contemplate a Being, capable of measuring all its waters "in the hollow of his hand ;" and who seems to our finite imaginations to have exercised, in forming it, the greatest possible exertion of omnipotence. Philosophy itself acknowledges, in its contemplation, all the fire and enthusiasm of poetry. In man, and in the works of man, we observe no permanent order. The laws of Nature on the contrary, forever are the same; operating with equal constancy, whether in the Scythian, the Atlantic, or the Indian; the Antarctic or Pacific. When the waves swell with storms, the sky darkens with clouds, and rocks reverberate, till echo wearies repeating their sounds; how vast is the conception of a power alone capable of commanding obedience to his mandate:

"Silence, ye troubled waves; and thou, deep, peace,"
Said then th' omnific word; "Your discord cease."

THE VALE OF TEMPE.

If towering and impending rocks, abrupt and gigantic mountains, and above all, the ocean, elevate the mind and exalt it above mortality, the woody dingle, the deep

and romantic glen, the rocky valley, and the wide, the rich, the fascinating vale, associating ideas of rural comfort and of peaceful enjoyment, cheerful industry, robust health, and tranquil happiness, draw us from subjects too high for human thought, chain us to the earth, and enchant us with magic spells. No country abounds more in those characters in which Nature delights to speak to the imagination, than Greece. Her mountains were not more the theme of her poets than her vales and her valleys. In that fine country, no vale was more celebrated than that of Tempe: a vale in which the peasants frequently assembled, in order to give entertainments to each other, and to offer sacrifices. A Greek writer calls it "a festival for the eyes," and the gods were believed frequently to wander in it. Of this enchanting spot, Pliny has given a description in the fourth book of his Natural History; but Ælian has left the most copious and accurate account of it. "Tempe," says he, "is situated between the mountains of Ossa and Pelion, which are the highest mountains in Thessaly; and are divided in this place with a singular kind of attention. They enclose a valley of five miles in length, but which in breadth often does not exceed a hundred feet. In the middle flows the river Peneus, which, at first, is little more than a cataract; but, by the addition of many smaller streams, it at length assumes considerable magnitude. Among the rich shrubs upon its banks, are various beautiful windings and recesses; not the works of human hands, but of spontaneous nature, which seems to have formed every thing in this spot with the solicitude of a mother. A profusion of ivy is seen in all parts of the woods, which, with the vine, ascend the tops of the highest trees, cling round their branches, and fall luxuriantly between them. The different species of convolvulus, which grow upon the sides of the hills, throw their white flowers and creeping foliage over the rocks; while in the vale, or wherever they can find a level surface, groves of all kinds, in venerable arches or capricious forms, afford a cool and refreshing retreat. Nor

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