200 LOOSE THOUGHTS ON THE CAUSE OF 



forming extensive gardens, in one of the public parks, for the dis- 

 play of foreign and indigenous birds of all kinds. 



The class Mammalia is too well known to require from me any 

 examples. I will now ask you to pause for a moment, to connect 

 the various objects presented to your notice, and the whole animal 

 kingdom is before you, forming a grand and harmonious picture. 

 Extend your mental vision to the Heavens, and what another glo- 

 rious scene ! The imagination here may wander through endless 

 realms of space, occupied by masses of matter, in magnitude and ra- 

 pidity of motion surpassing the powers of our finite comprehension. 

 If you ask their size, or try to measure them by magnitudes within 

 your reach, the attempt is hopeless. All the animated beings on 

 the earth, its forests, and its mountains, bear no greater relation to 

 its size, than the bloom upon a plum. And then, again, the globe 

 itself, with all it bears upon it, is lost in the greater immensity of 

 the heavenly bodies. If you ask of what materials these bodies are 

 composed, with what forms of living beings they are peopled, rea- 

 son, philosophy, and science, return no answer. Your imagination 

 may picture from analogy the purposes for which they were created, 

 and may people them with myriads of living forms ; but how poor, 

 how insignificant, is your attempt to scan or comprehend the works 

 and designs of Infinite Power, exerted with endless duration in in- 

 finite space ! 



LOOSE THOUGHTS ON THE CAUSE OF BEAUTY, 

 &c., IN ARCHITECTURE. 



In this enlightened age there is something eminently ridiculous 

 in a person (fancying himself in advance of his fellows in intellect 

 and knowledge) publishing his lucubrations with all the solemnity 

 of an oracle, and appearing ready to burst with the magnitude of 

 his discoveries, when, in fact, all his sublime thoughts are shared by 

 thousands. 



When we reflect on the great number of public buildings which 

 have pretensions to beauty and design, but which are so various in 

 form, and so diametrically opposite in the principles of their compo- 

 sition — even in those intended for similar purposes, which ought 

 certainly to have some similar expressions — we must perceive the 



