STUDY XIV. 321 



pofterity ; and we revolve what our Anceflors 

 were. They looked forward, and we look back- 

 ward. We are, in the State, like paffengers em- 

 barked, againft their will, onboard a veflel ; we 

 look toward the poop, and not to the prow ; to the 

 land from which we are taking our departure, and 

 not to that on which we hope to arrive. We colleft, 

 with avidity, Gothic manufcripts, monuments of 

 chivalry, the medallions of Childeric ; we pick up, 

 with ardour, all the worn out fragments of the an- 

 cient fabric of our State veflel. We purfue them 

 in a backward di region, as far as the eye can carry 

 us. Nay, we extend this folicitude about Anti- 

 quity, to monuments which are foreign to us ; to 

 thofe of the Greeks and Romans. They are, like 

 our own, the wrecks of their veflels, which have 

 perilhed on the vaft Ocean of Time, without being 

 able to get forward to us. They would have been, 

 accompanying us, nay, they would have been out- 

 failing us, had fkilful pilots always flood at the 

 helm. It is dill poflible to didinguifli them from 

 their fhattered fragments. From the fimplicity of 

 her conftruétion, and the lightnefs of her frame, 

 that mufl have been the Spartan Frigat. She was 

 made to fwim eternally ; but fhe had no bottom; 

 flie was overtaken by a dreadful tempeft; and the 

 Helots were incapable of reftoring the equilibrium. 

 From the loftinefs of her quarter-galleries, you 

 there diftinguifli the remains of the mighty firft- 

 voL. IV. Y rata 



