WILLIAM ROSS. 163 



the appropriate and beautiful application of it to the 

 judgment of human character belongs to Ross alone. 



Still finer, perhaps, is the following : ' The virtuous 

 man has not only the approbation of others but his own. 

 It is said by philosophers that the air we breathe would 

 be a most oppressive burden to us did it not penetrate 

 the pores of our bodies, and by filling every cavity within 

 render us unconscious to the weight which presses from 

 without. Thus the self-approbation of the virtuous man 

 renders the approbation of others an invigorating, re- 

 freshing thing ; but without it (I speak from experience) 

 the voice of praise appears a cruel irony a weight which 

 bends the consciously unworthy soul to the very dust.' 

 Poor fellow ! He was so good and so gifted that all who 

 knew him loved and admired him ; and so gentle-hearted, 

 so modest, and self-accusing, that even their admiration 

 gave him pain. In the same letter we have a glimpse of 

 the country about Perth : ' The scenery about Perth is ex- 

 quisitely beautiful. The day upon which I first came 

 within sight of it was calm and pleasant, and, then in 

 its decline, was clothing the woods, hills, and fields 

 with a yellow light. The Tay, speckled with boats and 

 small vessels, like a vein of silver winded through the 

 landscape. The distant town, half mixing with an azure 

 cloud which rested above it, seemed (to use the words 

 of my favourite poet) 



world's horizon ; dyed with the depth of heaven, and clothed with the 

 calm of eternity.. There was it set, for holy dominion, by Him who 

 marked for the sun His journey, arid bade the moon know her going 

 down. It was built for its place in the far-off sky ; approach it, and, as 

 the sound of the voice of man dies away about its foundation, and the 

 tide of human life, shattered upon the vast aerial shore, is at last met by 

 the Eternal " Here shall thy waves be stayed," the glory of its aspect 

 fades into blanched fearful ness : its purple walls are rent into grisly 

 rocks, its silver fretwork saddened into wasting snow : the storm-brands 

 of ages are on its breast, the ashes of its own ruin lie solemnly on its 

 white raiment.' Stones of Venice. 



