30 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



parations of Galen. The next century would appear clad in robes 

 of India silk. Century the fourth would stand beneath cathedral 

 piles, pointing to the new church bells. The succeeding century 

 would extend its bloody hands, pointing only to improved weapons 

 of massacre. The seventh century would brighten up to tell of 

 the glass and glass windows it brought to England. You would 

 observe its successor, in Arab costume, unrolling the cotton paper 

 of Bucharia. Century the ninth, amid all the thoughts of dire 

 desolation it might at first inspire, would sing anthems, for it 

 gave to the world of ages musical annotation. Dark and debased 

 century the tenth would boast, in demoniac glee, it secret poisons 

 and ingenious inquisitorial mechanism. The eleventh century 

 would slyly laugh, as it told of its crusades and its newly-invented 

 wind mills — not improperly in conjunction. Century the twelfth 

 would plausibly urge its claim to the original ownership of the 

 Marietta, or Mariner's Compass. Its next door neighbor would 

 vaunt itself of spectacles and perfected clocks. The fourteenth 

 would stand sooty with chimneys and freshly-delved coals. Mr. 

 Fifteenth would mutter of its improved English manufacture of 

 glass, but stand up proudly to show its hands soiled with honest 

 black from the printing press, and exclaiming: "I have originated 

 the ninth and greatest crusade against feudalism, bigotry, and 

 crime, with weapons of types !" On the back of the sixteenth 

 would ride Galileo, with Telescopes pointing starward. The 

 seventeenth would hold about its neck the Barometer. Close upon 

 its heels would follow the eighteenth, carrying the Thermometer 

 of Fahrenheit and the Air Pump. But in that centurial group of 

 inventions would grandly tower the nineteenth century, prema- 

 turely grey, with steaming nostrils and magnetic eye, inviting her 

 aged ancestors to her honies in Western Europe and America, 

 rich with luxury and consoling in hospitality to these Past Ages, 

 that were wearied by so much varied wandering. And no one of 

 the other eighteen centuries, however haughty or proud any of 

 them in the by-gone time may have been, would offer, there, to 

 pull from the brow of this nineteenth century, its Fortunatus cap 

 of Genius, embroidered vvith ' Daily wonders of Life.' 



