112 NIMROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 



called Salmonia. Such, however, as have not, will be struck with the 

 following elegant and philosophical comparison of a full and clear river : — 

 " Pliny has,"— says he, p. 175, " as well as I recollect, compared a river 

 to human life. I have never read the passage in his works, but I have 

 been a hundred times struck with the analogy, particularly amidst moun- 

 tain scenery. The river, small and clear in its origin, gushes forth from 

 rocks, falls into deep glens, and wantons and meanders through a wild 

 and picturesque country, nourishing only the uncultivated tree or flower 

 by its dew or spray. In this, its state of infancy and youth, it may be 

 compared to the human mind in which fancy and strength of imagination 

 are predominant — it is more beautiful than useful. When the different 

 rills or torrents join, and descend into the plain, it becomes slow and 

 stately in its motions ; it is applied to move machinery, to irrigate mea- 

 dows, and to bear upon its bosom the stately barge ; — in this mature 

 state, it is deep, strong, and useful. As it flows on towards the sea, it 

 loses its force and its motion, and at last, as it were, becomes lost and 

 mingled with the mighty abyss of waters." 



One might pursue the metaphor still further, and say, that in its 

 origin— its thundering and foam, when it carries down clay from the 

 bank, and becomes impure, it resembles the youthful mind, affected by 

 dangerous passions. And the influence of a lake, in calming and clearing- 

 the turbid water, may be compared to the effect of reason in more mature 

 life, when the calm, deep, cool, and unimpassioned mind is freed from its 

 fever, its troubles, bubbles, noise and foam. And above all, the sources 

 of a river, — which may be considered as belonging to the atmosphere, — 

 and its termination in the ocean, may be regarded as imaging the divine 

 origin of the human mind, and its being ultimately returned to, and lost 

 in, the infinite and eternal intelligence from whence it originally sprung," 



