STEAM NAVIGATION. 89 



the advantages of Eoman civilisation were carried 

 to the shores of Britain, whose inhabitants were 

 then little removed from the present condition of 

 the rudest aborigines of America ; but since the 

 period of the revival of letters and the coeval ad- 

 vancement of science, how unspeakable have been 

 the benefits which Europe has conferred on remote 

 nations by wafting over the deep those stores of 

 knowledge which tend to multiply and strengthen 

 the moral and intellectual bonds that, like the 

 principle of charity, will, it is to be hoped, yet 

 unite the whole brotherhood of mankind ! 



The Eoman poet was so impressed by the idea 

 of the perils of the deep to which, in a short 

 voyage from Athens, his friend Virgil was exposed, 

 that he spoke of the sailor who first trusted his frail 

 bark to the waves, as a man around whose heart 

 was the threefold brass of courage and heroism. 

 What amazement would have filled the mind of 

 that elegant writer, could he have seen the illus- 

 tration his metaphorical description has obtained 

 in the immense iron steam-ship, with its marvellous 

 machinery, literally surrounding the brave hearts 

 of our countrymen as they venture, not along the 

 shores of sunny Italy, or the once terrible Syrtes, 

 but over seas unknown to the ancient world, 

 where for thousands of miles the waters reach 

 away on every hand. 



" Maria tmdique et undique coelum ! " 



What flight of poetry would Horace have attempted 

 in referring to the mighty ship, with her hundreds 



