ROOM IN THE INN. 87 



father Adam gaze on thee ? Did Egyptian Sesostris, 

 and he of Macedon, and Hannibal, and the Caesars, 

 and Tamerlane, and Mahomet ? Did Hesiod, Homer, 

 and Sappho ? Did Shakspeare and Milton ? Come ! 

 thou'rt familiar with all these, and hast their histories 

 at heart. Nigh six millenniums must have unfolded 

 wonders ! How many battlefields hast thou ridden 

 across ! how many plague-struck realms, void of joy ! 

 Oh ! ours are but dull, tame times to thee, when em- 

 pires are at peace. 'Tis no spectacle, this commercial 

 theatre, like the war-field. Come, ope thy lips ! Why 

 so chary of thy knowledge ? Say, what thou seest 

 now ? what of navies in the broad blue sea ? what 

 of slumbering cities and tented armies ? what of 

 forests, wolf-infested ? of rueful wastes, stupendous 

 mountains, and mighty rivers ? Is thine eye on the 

 pyramids, and thy soul back among the Pharaohs ? 

 Art thou mingling thine with the cold silvers of their 

 north, or dost thou lace the waves, washing up the 

 corals to the very roots of broad-leaved palms, around 

 an Indian isle ? 



[The MS. soliloquy assumes at this point such a frag- 

 mentary appearance that we are induced to omit a 

 considerable portion of what remains. The following 

 appears to be its conclusion.] 



What dost thou with a cloud ? treachery ! the 

 ship is on a rock ! Ha ! forth again, to show his 



