SWIMMING BIRDS. 265 



When man rears a tenement of some ten or twelve stories 

 in height, we are apt to speak of it as something wonderfully- 

 elevated in building, and the Muses are supposed to come 

 more freely with their songs to those who tenant the thin 

 air of the upper chambers of such buildings, than to those 

 who reside more softly and substantially farther down. 

 What inspiration, then, must there be in a tall sea-cliff, upon 

 the summit of which one inhabits the thousandth story from 

 the base, and all the nine hundred and ninety-nine families 

 below are dwelling in perfect freedom, enjoyment, and joy ? 

 Altitude is, by prescription longer than all record, held to be 

 the mother of inspiration ; and though an inland Parnassus 

 may be sublime, yet it is a lifeless sublimity ; but on the tall 

 sea-cliff, Dulness herself may find inspiration. 



Let it be some remote isle, rising green and gradual from 

 a quiet beach on the east, as quiet as you can procure, for 

 among the wild islets in the deep, where alone the sight can 

 be enjoyed in full perfection, the ocean the Atlantic at 

 least will not rest, let the air be as tranquil as it may. 

 Well, you land, and ascend gradually to the height of some 

 fifteen hundred feet (though I believe Conagra in St. Kilda 

 is about fifty feet less), and during the whole ascent you have 

 no forward view. The place is without a tree, or even a 

 shrub ; but the temperature is mild and the sod is green. 

 (It is a curious fact, by the way, that the Atlantic seems to 

 be the only ocean whose breezes clothe the fields with peren- 

 nial greenness without the assistance of art.) You gain the 

 summit : the western sea appears at your feet, notwith- 

 standing that you feel fatigued with the ascent. But that 

 sea is glassy in the offing, though it ripples on the rocks ; and 

 you must look at the profiles of the jutting crags right and 

 left, and also at the expanse before you, in order to be 

 sensible how high you stand. 



It is " the midnight of noon," the dead hour of the sultry 



