20 



their compositions are illustrated with plates of frank 

 hospitality. Amid the vines of modern times we 

 can scarcely hope that the grapes which allure us 

 are sour : and as we look on the orchards, we cease 

 to wonder that the temptation of the fair apples 

 should have seduced the mother of mankind. 



Yet, the wide extension of the frontier lines of 

 art, is but the beginning of a far off end. Every 

 fact of acquired knowledge is a prolific seed : buried 

 in the good soil, it rests dormant for a time : then it 

 is quickened and shoots up, bearing, in the fullness 

 of days, hundred fold increase : the grains of its 

 production again scattered, in due season, are re- 

 productive beyond the power of numbers to repre- 

 sent. Each discovered principle, stands like an 

 arch, sustaining the structure of an immediate ben- 

 efit, while through the curve beneath is opened a 

 vista of good extending through the eternity of the 

 future. Truth is inclosed within truth, as each ex- 

 panding petal of the rose-bud folds another bright 

 leaf beneath. 



It is humiliating to human pride to confess how 

 narrow is the span of our real possessions. The 

 natural sight can scarcely embrace with distinctness 

 one single square mile of the area of the earth's 

 surface : the intellectual vision rano;es with certain- 

 ty over a space comparatively less broad. To the 

 eye of the body, the horizon seems to close down 

 upon the hills that overshadow our own homes : as 

 we advance towards the receding circle of the skies, 

 beyond the most distant step of our journey, spread 

 continents and oceans of unvisited lands and unex- 

 plored waters. To the eye of the mind, the hori- 



