STUDY IX. 255 



tent Naïad who kept his ft ream perpetually flow- 

 ing ; and who increafed it's quantity and it's cool- 

 nefs as the Summer's heat increafed. One day a 

 fancy ftruck him, that he would go and difcover 

 the place where (lie concealed her inexhauftible 

 urn. To prevent his going aftray, he begins with 

 purfuing upward the track of his rivulet. By little 

 and little he rifes upon the mountain. Every ftep 

 he takes, in afcending, difcovers to him a thoufand 

 new objedls ; plains, forefts, rivers, kingdoms, 

 boundlefs Oceans. Tranfported with delight, he 

 proceeds in fl,attering hope of fpeedily reaching 

 the bleffed abode where the Gods prefide over the 

 deftiny of this World. Bur, after a painful 

 fcramble, he arrives at the bottom of a tremendous 

 glacier. He no longer fees any thing around him 

 but mifts, rocks, torrents, precipices. All, all 

 has vaniflied. Sweet and tranquil valley, humble 

 roof, beneficent Naiad ! his patrimony is now re- 

 duced to a cloud, and his divinity to an enormous 

 mafs of ice. 



It is thus that Science has conduded us through 

 fedudive paths, to a termination fo fearful. She 

 drags after her, in the train of her ambitious re- 

 fearches, that ancient malediftion pronounced 

 againft the firft man who (hould dare to eat the 

 fruit of her forbidden tree ^^, " Behold, the man 



* Genefis, chap, iiii, ver. 22. 



is 



