ANGLING REMINISCENCES. 79 



father Adam gaze on thee ? Did Egyptian Sesostris, 

 and he of Macedon, and Hannibal, and the Csesars, 

 and Tamerlane, and Mahomet? Did Hesiod, 

 Homer, and Sappho ? Did Shakspeare and Mil- 

 ton? Come! thou'rt familiar with all these, and 

 hast their histories at heart. Nigh six millenniums 

 must have unfolded wonders ! How many battle- 

 fields hast thou ridden across ! how many plague- 

 struck realms, void of joy! Oh ! ours are but dull, 

 tame times* to thee, when empires are at peace. 

 'Tis no spectacle, this commercial theatre, like the 

 war-field. Come, ope thy lips ! Why so chary of 

 thy knowledge ? Say, what thou seest now ? what 

 of navies in the broad blue sea ? what of slumber- 

 ing cities and tented armies? what of forests, 

 wolf-infested? of rueful wastes, stupendous moun- 

 tains, and mighty rivers? Is thine eye on the 

 pyramids, and thy soul back among the Pharaohs ? 

 Art thou mingling thine with the cold silvers of their 

 north, or dost thou lace the waves, washing up the 

 corals to the very roots of broad-leaved palms, 

 around an Indian isle? 



[The MS. soliloquy assumes at this point such a frag- 

 mentary appearance, that we are induced to omit a 

 considerable portion of what remains. The following 

 appears to be its conclusion. ] 



What dost thou with a cloud ? O treachery ! the 

 ship is on a rock ! Ha ! forth again, to shew his 



