74 EXCURSION TO THE REALMS BELOW. 



images on my foul. Thofe favourites of nature alone 

 who are born with the tenderer! feelings, and can re- 

 collect how, in the days of their flrfl love, they have 

 fondly walked arm in arm with .fome beloved foul (for, 

 in that blifsful period of life, we roam about in a 

 purely fpiritual world, and love nought but fouls) fe- 

 eluded from the world, on a cool, refrefhing evening, 

 to a verdant bower, enlightened only by the moon ; 

 they alone can get an idea of thefe charming vales of 

 reft, they muft fupply to their imagination thofe de- 

 scriptions which I fhould in vain attempt : and, as for 

 all others, the livelier!: defcription would be but a dead 

 letter to them. 



I faw thefe charming fields thronged by an innume- 

 rable hoft of human forms, who, in larger or fmaller 

 companies, were fitting familiarly together, under the 

 fpreading boughs of lofty trees, or by the brink of 

 fome fhady fountain, or walking in pairs among the 

 winding thickets, holding fweet focratic converfe, or 

 lonely purfuing their own meditations in filent groves 

 and grots. I too glided along, with the fleetnefs of a 

 fhade, or bounded over the flowers and herbs that 

 every where covered the face of the ground, and 

 fprung up without the help of culture ; and the gentleft 

 gales I ever breathed, replete with a genial balm, 

 feemed to keep whatever flourifhed here, in an eternal 

 youth. 



Uncertain whither I fhould flrft turn my curiofity 

 amid fuch a multitude of objects equally ftriving to at- 

 tract: it, my fight at length attached itfelf to a gentle 

 afcent ; which, furrounded by a rich inclofure of lau- 

 rels and ever-verdant mvxtles, reprefented a maenifi- 



cent 



