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excelled all the poets. The power of his poetry lay rather in the 
region of the senses than because of its high imagination. In 
the description of preternatural fear, or dread of some undefined 
evil, he was unapproached and unapproachable. That was seen 
in the “Ancient Mariner,’ in which loveliness and terror 
alternated, while the mind was kept entranced. The poem was 
then analysed and its teaching pointed out. There was depicted 
in it, in masterly style, the selfishness and lovelessness of the 
life, when home influences were cast aside, and religious 
impulses were absent. The wreck symbolized a ruined life, in 
which the man was morally dead to nobleness, truth, and purity. 
He wallowed, as it were, in the deeps of moral degradation, and 
there was the dread desolation, in which the man was shewn as 
shorn of all his attributesand companionships. Then the spring 
of love gushed from his heart, and his appreciation of what was 
beautiful was meant to teach that no man was hopelessly bad 
who had an eye for beauty and a heart for admiration. The 
story of his restoration was next sketched, how prayer was the 
start on his new voyage, and how sleep, the ‘ baptism of 
oblivion,” prefaced his return. The part which Nature played 
was lastly dealt with. Nature had a voice of healing for him as 
well as the preached word, and in this connection Mr. Mather 
quoted the well known words of the poem :— 
‘He prayeth best, who loveth best 
All things, both great and small.” 
RAMBLES IN NORMANDY WITH A CAMERA. 
By EDWARD W. MELLOR. March 17th, 1891. 
(Illustrated by Lantern.) 
Normandy is a French province more intimately connected 
with English History than any other part of the Huropean 
continent. From it our language and literature is largely 
derived, and it affords much of deep interest to the artist, the 
architect, the antiquary, and the historian. The lecturer spoke 
of his visit to three of the Departments :—Seine Inférieure, lying 
to the north of the River Seine ; Calvados, to the south of the 
river ; and Manche, on the west side of Normandy. A descrip- 
tion of Havre was followed by impressions of Lillebonne, where 
once stood a castle, in the great hall of which William assembled 
his barons in council to concert measures for the conquest of 
England. It is most widely known for its traces of Roman 
occupation. In the year 1812, there was excavated here the 
