THE RIVER. 149 



days of Pliny, and probably from days long before 

 Pliny was born, it has been customary to look upon a 

 river as the emblem of human life. It brawls its 

 sparkling and playful childhood among the mountains, 

 " leaps down into life " by the last cascade. Then it 

 mingles among busy scenes : laves alike the castle 

 and the cottage, grinds at the mill, and glitters round 

 the churchyard ; broadening, and slackening its pace 

 while it runs ; and at last mingles in the mass of de- 

 parted rivers in the boundless expanse of the ocean. 

 The simile is not a bad one; and as a well chosen 

 simile is to him who wishes for thought without pe- 

 dantry and formality, what a well-dressed fly is to an 

 angler, it will bear to be pursued a little farther ; and 

 this is the more pardonable, that the termination which 

 at the ocean is tinged with gloom and despair, may be 

 brightened into hope and exultation. 



The river is not, in its physical structure, in the 

 water of which it is composed, the same for one day, or 

 even for one hour ; but still, there is an identity which 

 is never lost, amid all those changes. Just so with 

 man : in his structure, in his pursuits, in his feelings 

 and associations, he changes every hour ; but still he 

 is the same individual, the chain of identity is never 

 broken. Whence does the river receive that constant 

 supply, which enables it to run perennial to the sea, in 

 omne volubilis cevum, ever draining, yet never dry, 

 ever wasting, yet never the nearer done ? There is a 

 spirit in the air, an invisible agent, which sustains the 

 fountains of life ; and by the action of which, the river 

 is enabled to flow, and man to contemplate its beauties, 

 and meditate upon its wonders. It has been mentioned 

 o 3 



