REFLECTIONS ON NATURE AND ART 97 



deforms it, if our feelings are neither pained nor in- 

 dignantly roused by the narrative of the historian, 

 still we rise from the subject with the melancholy 

 conviction that these things are perishable ; that the 

 cunning hand of the artificer, and the master-spirit 

 of the narrator, has either passed away or will soon 

 be laid in the dust ; and that these records of their 

 skill or of their genius may be lost or destroyed by 

 one of those thousand accidents which have already 

 swept into oblivion so many similar productions 

 There are few contemplative men, after viewing 

 those celebrated fragments called the Elgin Marbles, 

 who have turned from them without some such 

 feelings as those we have described. Our wonder, 

 indeed, is excited at the exquisite skill which is still 

 so conspicuous in these relics ; but the sight of decay 

 and dilapidation is at all times melancholy. We are 

 not only reminded of the instability of every thing 

 human ; but a vague suspicion must cross the mind 

 even of the most successful, that his own labours, upon 

 which he fondly builds his hopes of deathless fame, 

 may share the same fate ; and that a time may come 

 when not only his works, but his very name, may be 

 blotted from the records of future generations. 



(46.) If, on the other hand, we turn to those studies 

 which more immediately concern Nature, we find a 

 marked difference both in the facts and in the 

 deductions. Here we have to do with things 

 immutable, and with objects perfect in struc- 

 ture. Our mental perceptions are employed in 

 contemplating phenomena which have remained, 

 for the most part, unchanged from the beginning, 

 and will continue unchangeable so long as the laws 



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