Pop] AND SYMBOLS. 277 



The Alternity of Political Notions. 



There are lagoons at the mouths of many rivers, as the Nile 

 and Mississippi, which are divided off by bars of sand from the 

 sea, and which are filled with salt and fresh water by turns. 

 They often communicate exclusively with the river for months, 

 years, or even centuries ; and then a breach being made in the 

 bar of sand, they are for long periods filled with salt water. 

 The Lym-Fiord in Jutland offers an excellent illustration of 

 analogous changes ; for in the course of the last thousand years 

 the western extremity of this long frith, which is 120 miles in 

 length, including its windings, has been four times fresh and 

 four times salt, a bar of sand between it and the ocean having 

 been as often formed and removed. The last irruption of salt 

 water happened in 1824, when the North Sea entered, killing 

 all the fresh-water shells, fish, and plants ; and from that time 

 to the present, the sea-weed Fucus vesiculosus, together with 

 oysters and other marine mollusca, have succeeded the Cyclas, 

 Lymnea, Paludina, and Charae. These phenomena find a corre- 

 spondence in the political world, where the tides of opinion 

 alternate between the fresh water of Liberalism and the salt sea 

 of Toryism. The operation of these respective forces, and their 

 dissimilar products, can be traced not only in the Statute Book, 

 but all through modern history. The shores of the ecclesiastical 

 world bear vast evidence of the operation of the alternate 

 currents of freedom and of bigotry. The Henry Eighth, the 

 Elizabeth, the Mary, the James, and the Cromwell periods 

 especially are rich in their illustration of the achievements of 

 torrents of alternate opinion. E. 



Currents of Popular Thought. 



When we observe the action of public opinion in this country, 

 and the way in which various sections of the community become 

 subject to sudden and sometimes inexplicable opinions, which 

 afterwards in modified forms are then, perhaps, adopted or 

 opposed by other sections ; and contemplate the singular cross- 

 workings and courses of popular thought and sentiment, we are 

 reminded of the movements and constitution of currents of air. 



