28 BOCKS. 



rocky cliff. Each one would feel a desire to climb upon 

 its sides, and to obtain a resting-place upon its dangerous 

 summit. These circumstances stimulate the adventurous 

 spirit, and become picturesque when represented on can- 

 vas, by affording the same agreeable excitement to the 

 imagination. Hence the imaginative as well as the ad- 

 venturous are delighted with this kind of scenery, that 

 arouses the enterprise of the one and awakens the poetical 

 feelings of the other. What do we care for a scene, how- 

 ever beautiful, which is so tame as to offer no exercise for 

 the imagination? Rocks, by increasing the inequalities 

 of the surface, proportionally multiply the ideas and im- 

 ages that are associated with a landscape. 



It is not an uninteresting inquiry, why a prospect 

 beheld from a rocky cliff yields us more pleasure than 

 the same beheld from an even slope. Is it more poetical, 

 when we partake of any such enjoyment, to be discon- 

 nected from objects immediately around us ? Or, when 

 standing upon a rock that projects from the surface of 

 the ground, may we not experience an illusive feeling of 

 elevation ? On the northern coast of Massachusetts Bay 

 are many grand and delightful views of the ocean from 

 points on the neighboring hills and eminences. Some of 

 these views are unsurpassed in beauty. I have repeatedly 

 observed that parties of pleasure, when making an excur- 

 sion on the hills, are not satisfied with a view of the sea 

 and the landscape until they have beheld it from some 

 towering rock. There is probably a poetic feeling of 

 isolation attending us when standing upon a rock that 

 increases the emotions, whether of beauty or sublimity, 

 which are excited by the prospect. 



Any one who has rambled over the bald hills that 

 bound this shore can bear witness to the power of such 

 rude scenery to magnify the sentiments that spring from 

 the aspect of desolation. They are felt in these places, 



