THE SEA. 



can hardly gaze upon the great ocean 

 without feelings akin to awe and reverence. 

 ^"Whether viewed from some promontory where 

 ' the eye seeks in vain another resting-place, 

 or when sailing over the deep, one looks around 

 on the unbounded expanse of waters, the sea 

 must always give rise to ideas of infinite space 

 and indefinable mystery hardly paralleled by anything 

 of the earth itself. Beneficent in its calmer aspect, when 

 '^ the silvery moon lights up the ripples and the good ship 

 scuds along before a favouring breeze ; terrible in its might, 

 ~ when its merciless breakers dash upon some rock-girt coast, 

 carryirg the gallant bark to destruction, or when, rising 

 mountains high, the spars quiver and snap before the 

 tempest's power, it is always grand, sublime, irresistible. 

 The great highway of commerce and source of boundlec/s 

 supplies, it is, notwithstanding its terrors, infinitely more 

 man's friend than his enemy. In how great a variety of 

 aspects may it not be viewed ! 



The poets have seen in it a "type of the Infinite," 



