STAFFA. GENERAL DESCRIPTION. 15 



in England. Those who have seen the front of Peter- 

 borough cathedral, will be at no loss in understanding 

 the effect to which I allude.* 



Description has long since been exhausted on the cave 

 of Fingal.f If too much admiration has been lavished 

 on it by some, and if, in consequence, more recent visitors 

 have left it with disappointment, it must be recollected 

 that all such descriptions are but pictures of the feelings 

 of the narrator. It is moreover as unreasonable to expect 

 that the same objects should produce corresponding- 

 effects on all minds, on the enlightened and on the vul- 

 gar, as that every individual should alike be sensible of 

 the merits of Phidias and Raphael, of Sophocles and 

 Otway. Let those who have a taste for the grand and 

 the beautiful, and who, from the cause above mentioned, 

 may have quitted Staffa with a sensation of disappoint- 

 ment, return to this cave again, and again view it, regard- 

 less of the descriptions of others and their own ill-founded 

 anticipations. They will then become sensible of its beau- 

 ties, and feel ready to describe it in terms which may 

 excite equal disappointment in those who shall follow, 

 and who may, like themselves, vainly expect that the 

 feelings of one individual are the measure for those of 

 another, or that any thing can exist which the imagi- 

 nation is not ready to exceed. Whatever disappointment 

 may, on a first view, be experienced from this cause, will 



* The want of that relieving shadow must be no less felt by a cul- 

 tivated taste in contemplating the beautiful tower of Gloucester cathe- 

 dral, where the richness of the ornamental work is obscured, and in 

 a great measure lost, in consequence of the wooden divisions that 

 fill the windows. These, catching a multiplicity of small lights, dazzle 

 the eye and distract its attention ; producing an uniform minutely 

 divided surface, where the architect undoubtedly intended contrast ; 

 the object in view in the magnitude and structure of the windows 

 being apparently that of relieving the ornaments which surround them. 



f I use this name in conformity to the present custom, but it is 

 of recent introduction. The Gaelic name is Uaimh binn, the Musical 

 Cave; a term probably derived from the echo of the waves. 

 4 



