THE END OF ALL THE LAND 57 



One is glad that cormorant, book-devouring Time, 

 has spared us Baker Peter Smith. 



But there are a few noble passages to be found as 

 well, and I think this one of Humphry Davy, writ- 

 ten in youth before the flower of poesy withered in 

 him, pleases me the best : 



On the sea 



The sunbeams tremble and the purple light 

 Illumes the dark Bolerium, seat of storms ! 

 Dear are his granite wilds, his schistine rocks 

 Encircled by the waves, where to the gale 

 The haggard cormorant shrieks, and, far beyond 

 Where the great ocean mingles with the sky, 

 Behold the cloud-like islands, grey in mist. 



Another notable utterance was that of John 

 Wesley, when on a Sunday in September, 1743, 

 after preaching to the people at Sennen, he went down 

 to look at the Land's End. " It was an awful sight," 

 he wrote. " But how will this melt away when God 

 ariseth in judgment ! The sea beneath doth indeed 

 boil like a pot. One would think the deep to be 

 hoary. But though they swell yet can they not 

 prevail. He shall set their bounds which they cannot 

 pass." 



There spoke the founder of Methodism, saturated 

 in Biblical phraseology until it gushed spontaneously 

 from him even as its song or cry from a bird. He 

 had forgotten his own language, as it were, and even 

 in an exalted moment in this grey north land could 

 only express himself in these old Asiatic figures of 

 speech. 



To return from this digression. Although the 



