50 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



mountain, on feeing a vefiel at Sea. I took a fancy 

 to engrave an infcription on the flem of this reed. 

 Whatever pleafiire I may have enjoyed in the courfe 

 of my travels, in contemplating a ftatue, or a mo- 

 nument of Antiquity, I have enjoyed ftill more in 

 perufing a well-conceived inicription. It feems to 

 me, in that cafe, as if a human voice iffued out of 

 the flone, made itfelf audible through the mighty 

 void of ages, and, addreffing itfelf to Man, in the 

 midft of deferts, told him that he was not alone ; 

 and that other men, in thefe very places, had felt, 

 thought, and fuffered, like himfelf. Should it hap- 

 pen to be the infcription of fome ancient Nation, 

 which fubfifts no longer, it conveys our foul into 

 the regions of infinity, and communicates to it 

 the fentiment of it's own immortality, by fhewing, 

 that a thought has outlived the ruins even of an 

 Empire. 



1 infcribed, then, on the little mafl which car- 

 ried the flag of Paul and Virginia, thefe verfes of 



Horace : 



Fratres Heienae, lucida fidera, 



Ventorumque regat Pater, 

 Obftriftis aliis, practer lapyga*. 



* Thus imitated : 

 May Hekn^i brothers, ftars fo bright, 

 And ^o/w guide your courfe aright, 

 That, fafe from every ruder gale. 

 Zephyrs alone may fwell the faiJ. 



'' May 



