PREFACE. XV 



and priceless gem of beauty, establishing the 

 claims of our art for fostering contemplation on 

 subjects of the deepest interest to humanity. 



Physicus. I envy no quality of the mind or intellect 

 in others; not genius, power, wit, or fancy. But if I 

 could choose what would be most delightful, and I 

 believe most useful to me, I should prefer a firm re- 

 ligious belief to every other blessing : for it makes life a 

 discipline of goodness, creates new hopes when all earthly 

 hopes vanish, and throws over the decay, the destruc- 

 tion of existence, the most gorgeous of all lights, awakens 

 life even in death, and from corruption and decay calls 

 up beauty and divinity, makes an instrument of torture 

 and of shame the ladder of ascent to paradise ; and far 

 above all combinations of earthly hopes, calls up the 

 most delightful visions of palms and amaranths, the 

 gardens of the blest, the security of everlasting joys, 

 where the sensualist and the sceptic view only gloom, 

 decay, annihilation, and despair.* 



* Salmonia, p. 136. By the late Sir Humphry Davy. 



