[Sevenfold reed.I. 328. The sevenfold reed, with which Pan is frequently described, seems to indicate, that he was the inventor of the musical gamut.]
"I faint, I fall!"—at noonthe Beauty cried,"Weep o'er my tomb, ye Nymphs!"—and sunk and died.—Thus, when white Winter o'er the shivering climeDrives the still snow, or showers the silver rime;335 As the lone shepherd o'er the dazzling rocksPrints his steep step, and guides his vagrant flocks;Views the green holly veil'd in network nice,Her vermil clusters twinkling in the ice;Admires the lucid vales, and slumbering floods,340 Fantastic cataracts, and crystal woods,Transparent towns, with seas of milk between,And eyes with transport the refulgent scene:—If breaks the sunshine o'er the spangled trees,Or flits on tepid wing the western breeze,345 In liquid dews descends the transient glare,And all the glittering pageant melts in air.Where Andes hides his cloud-wreath'd crest in snow,And roots his base on burning sands below;Cinchona, fairest of Peruvian maids350 To Health's bright Goddess in the breezy gladesOn Quito's temperate plain an altar rear'd,Trill'd the loud hymn, the solemn prayer preferr'd:Each balmy bud she cull'd, and honey'd flower,And hung with fragrant wreaths the sacred bower;355 Each pearly sea she search'd, and sparkling mine,And piled their treasures on the gorgeous shrine;Her suppliant voice for sickening Loxa raised,Sweet breath'd the gale, and bright the censor blazed.
—"Divine HYGEIA! on thy votaries bend360 Thy angel-looks, oh, hear us, and defend!While streaming o'er the night with baleful glareThe star of Autumn rays his misty hair;Fierce from his fens the Giant AGUE springs,And wrapp'd in fogs descends on vampire wings;
[Cinchona. l. 349. Peruvian bark-tree. Five males, and one female. Several of these trees were felled for other purposes into a lake, when an epidemic fever of a very mortal kind prevailed at Loxa in Peru, and the woodmen, accidentally drinking the water, were cured; and thus were discovered the virtues of this famous drug.]
365 "Before, with shuddering limbs cold Tremor reels,And Fever's burning nostril dogs his heels;Loud claps the grinning Fiend his iron hands,Stamps with his marble feet, and shouts along the lands;Withers the damask cheek, unnerves the strong,370 And drives with scorpion-lash the shrieking throng.Oh, Goddess! on thy kneeling votaries bendThy angel-looks, oh, hear us, and defend!"—HYGEIA, leaning from the blest abodes,The crystal mansions of the immortal gods,375 Saw the sad Nymph uplift her dewy eyes,Spread her white arms, and breathe her fervid sighs;Call'd to her fair associates, Youth, and Joy,And shot all-radiant through the glittering sky;Loose waved behind her golden train of hair,380 Her sapphire mantle swam diffus'd in air.—O'er the grey matted moss, and pansied sod,With step sublime the glowing Goddess trod,Gilt with her beamy eye the conscious shade,And with her smile celestial bless'd the maid.385 "Come to my arms," with seraph voice she cries,"Thy vows are heard, benignant Nymph! arise;Where yon aspiring trunks fantastic wreathTheir mingled roots, and drink the rill beneath,Yield to the biting axe thy sacred wood,390 And strew the bitter foliage on the flood."In silent homage bow'd the blushing maid,—Fiveyouths athletic hasten to her aid,O'er the scar'd hills re-echoing strokes resound,And headlong forests thunder on the ground.395 Round the dark roots, rent bark, and shatter'd boughs,From ocherous beds the swelling fountain flows;With streams austere its winding margin laves,And pours from vale to vale its dusky waves.—As the pale squadrons, bending o'er the brink,400 View with a sigh their alter'd forms, and drink;Slow-ebbing life with refluent crimson breaksO'er their wan lips, and paints their haggard cheeks;Through each fine nerve rekindling transports dart,Light the quick eye, and swell the exulting heart.405 —Thus ISRAEL's heaven-taught chief o'er trackless landsLed to the sultry rock his murmuring bands.Bright o'er his brows the forky radiance blazed,And high in air the rod divine He raised.—Wide yawns the cliff!—amid the thirsty throng410 Rush the redundant waves, and shine along;With gourds and shells and helmets press the bands,Ope their parch'd lips, and spread their eager hands,Snatch their pale infants to the exuberant shower,Kneel on the shatter'd rock, and bless the Almighty Power.
415 Bolster'd with down, amid a thousand wants,Pale Dropsy rears his bloated form, and pants;"Quench me, ye cool pellucid rills!" he cries,Wets his parch'd tongue, and rolls his hollow eyes.So bends tormented TANTALUS to drink,420 While from his lips the refluent waters shrink;Again the rising stream his bosom laves,And Thirst consumes him 'mid circumfluent waves.—Divine HYGEIA, from the bending skyDescending, listens to his piercing cry;425 Assumes bright DIGITALIS' dress and air,Her ruby cheek, white neck, and raven hair;Fouryouths protect her from the circling throng,And like the Nymph the Goddess steps along.——O'er Him She waves her serpent-wreathed wand,430 Cheers with her voice, and raises with her hand,Warms with rekindling bloom his visage wan,And charms the shapeless monster into man.
[Digitalis. l. 425. Of the class Two Powers. Four males, one female, Foxglove. The effect of this plant in that kind of Dropsy, which is termed anasarca, where the legs and thighs are much swelled, attended with great difficulty of breathing, is truly astonishing. In the ascites accompanied with anasarca of people past the meridian of life it will also sometimes succeed. The method of administering it requires some caution, as it is liable, in greater doses, to induce very violent and debilitating sickness, which continues one or two days, during which time the dropsical collection however disappears. One large spoonful, or half an ounce, of the following decoction, given twice a day, will generally succeed in a few days. But in more robust people, one large spoonful every two hours, till four spoonfuls are taken, or till sickness occurs, will evacuate the dropsical swellings with greater certainty, but is liable to operate more violently. Boil four ounces of the fresh leaves of purple Foxglove (which leaves may be had at all seasons of the year) from two pints of water to twelve ounces; add to the strained liquor, while yet warm, three ounces of rectified spirit of wine. A theory of the effects of this medicine, with many successful cases, may be seen in a pamphlet, called, "Experiments on Mucilaginous and Purulent Matter," published by Dr. Darwin in 1780. Sold by Cadell, London.]
So when Contagion with mephitic breathAnd withered Famine urged the work of death;435 Marseilles' good Bishop, London's generous Mayor,With food and faith, with medicine and with prayer,Raised the weak head and stayed the parting sigh,Or with new life relumed the swimming eye.—440 —And now, PHILANTHROPY! thy rays divineDart round the globe from Zembla to the Line;O'er each dark prison plays the cheering light,Like northern lustres o'er the vault of night.—
[Marseillle's good Bishop. l. 435. In the year 1720 and 1722 the Plague made dreadful havock at Marseilles; at which time the Bishop was indefatigable in the execution of his pastoral office, visiting, relieving, encouraging, and absolving the sick with extream tenderness; and though perpetually exposed to the infection, like Sir John Lawrence mentioned below, they both are said to have escaped the disease.]
[London's generous Mayor, l. 435. During the great Plague at London in the year 1665, Sir John Lawrence, the then Lord Mayor, continued the whole time in the city; heard complaints, and redressed them; enforced the wisest regulations then known, and saw them executed. The day after the disease was known with certainty to be the Plague, above 40,000 servants were dismissed, and turned into the streets to perish, for no one would receive them into their houses; and the villages near London drove them away with pitch-forks and fire-arms. Sir John Lawrence supported them all, as well as the needy who were sick, at first by expending his own fortune, till subscriptions could be solicited and received from all parts of the nation.Journal of the Plague-year, Printed for E. Nutt, &c. at the R. Exchange. 1722.]
From realm to realm, with cross or crescent crown'd,Where'er Mankind and Misery are found,445 O'er burning sands, deep waves, or wilds of snow,Thy HOWARD journeying seeks the house of woe.Down many a winding step to dungeons dank,Where anguish wails aloud, and fetters clank;To caves bestrew'd with many a mouldering bone,450 And cells, whose echoes only learn to groan;Where no kind bars a whispering friend disclose,No sunbeam enters, and no zephyr blows,HE treads, inemulous of fame or wealth,Profuse of toil, and prodigal of health;455 With soft assuasive eloquence expandsPower's rigid heart, and opes his clenching hands;Leads stern-ey'd Justice to the dark domains,If not to fever, to relax the chains;Or guides awaken'd Mercy through the gloom,460 And shews the prison, sister to the tomb!—Gives to her babes the self-devoted wife,To her fond husband liberty and life!——The Spirits of the Good, who bend from highWide o'er these earthly scenes their partial eye,465 When first, array'd in VIRTUE'S purest robe,They saw her HOWARD traversing the globe;Saw round his brows her sun-like Glory blazeIn arrowy circles of unwearied rays;Mistook a Mortal for an Angel-Guest,470 And ask'd what Seraph-foot the earth imprest.—Onward he moves!—Disease and Death retire,And murmuring Demons hate him, and admire."
Here paused the Goddess,—on HYGEIA'S shrineObsequious Gnomes repose the lyre divine;475 Descending Sylphs relax the trembling strings,And catch the rain-drops on their shadowy wings.—And now her vase a modest Naiad fillsWith liquid crystal from her pebbly rills;Piles the dry cedar round her silver urn,480 (Bright climbs the blaze, the crackling faggots burn),Culls the green herb of China's envy'd bowers,In gaudy cups the steamy treasure pours;And, sweetly-smiling, on her bended kneePresents the fragrant quintessence of Tea.
Bookseller.The monsters of your Botanic Garden are as surprising as the bulls with brazen feet, and the fire-breathing dragons, which guarded the Hesperian fruit; yet are they not disgusting, nor mischievous: and in the manner you have chained them together in your exhibition, they succeed each other amusingly enough, like prints of the London Cries, wrapped upon rollers, with a glass before them. In this at least they resemble the monsters in Ovid's Metamorphoses; but your similies, I suppose, are Homeric?
Poet.The great Bard well understood how to make use of this kind of ornament in Epic Poetry. He brings his valiant heroes into the field with much parade, and sets them a fighting with great fury; and then, after a few thrusts and parries, he introduces a long string of similies. During this the battle is supposed to continue; and thus the time necessary for the action is gained in our imaginations; and a degree of probability produced, which contributes to the temporary deception or reverie of the reader.
But the similies of Homer have another agreeable characteristic; they do not quadrate, or go upon all fours (as it is called), like the more formal similies of some modern writers; any one resembling feature seems to be with him a sufficient excuse for the introduction of this kind of digression; he then proceeds to deliver some agreeable poetry on this new subject, and thus converts every simile into a kind of short episode.
B.Then a simile should not very accurately resemble the subject?
P.No; it would then become a philosophical analogy, it would be ratiocination instead of poetry: it need only so far resemble the subject, as poetry itself ought to resemble nature. It should have so much sublimity, beauty, or novelty, as to interest the reader; and should be expressed in picturesque language, so as to bring the scenery before his eye; and should lastly bear so much veri-similitude as not to awaken him by the violence of improbability or incongruity.
B.May not the reverie of the reader be dissipated or disturbed by disagreeable images being presented to his imagination, as well as by improbable or incongruous ones?P. Certainly; he will endeavour to rouse himself from a disagreeable reverie, as from the night-mare. And from this may be discovered the line of boundary between the Tragic and the Horrid: which line, however, will veer a little this way or that, according to the prevailing manners of the age or country, and the peculiar associations of ideas, or idiosyncracy of mind, of individuals. For instance, if an artist should represent the death of an officer in battle, by shewing a little blood on the bosom of his shirt, as if a bullet had there penetrated, the dying figure would affect the beholder with pity; and if fortitude was at the same time expressed in his countenance, admiration would be added to our pity. On the contrary, if the artist should chuse to represent his thigh as shot away by a cannon ball, and should exhibit the bleeding flesh and shattered bone of the stump, the picture would introduce into our minds ideas from a butcher's shop, or a surgeon's operation-room, and we should turn from it with disgust. So if characters were brought upon the stage with their limbs disjointed by torturing instruments, and the floor covered with clotted blood and scattered brains, our theatric reverie would be destroyed by disgust, and we should leave the play-house with detestation.
The Painters have been more guilty in this respect than the Poets; the cruelty of Apollo in flaying Marcias alive is a favourite subject with the antient artists: and the tortures of expiring martyrs have disgraced the modern ones. It requires little genius to exhibit the muscles in convulsive action either by the pencil or the chissel, because the interstices are deep, and the lines strongly defined: but those tender gradations of muscular action, which constitute the graceful attitudes of the body, are difficult to conceive or to execute, except by a master of nice discernment and cultivated taste.B.By what definition would you distinguish the Horrid from the Tragic?
P.I suppose the latter consists of Distress attended with Pity, which is said to be allied to Love, the most agreeable of all our passions; and the former in Distress, accompanied with Disgust, which is allied to Hate, and is one of our most disagreeable sensations. Hence, when horrid scenes of cruelty are represented in pictures, we wish to disbelieve their existence, and voluntarily exert ourselves to escape from the deception: whereas the bitter cup of true Tragedy is mingled with some sweet consolatory drops, which endear our tears, and we continue to contemplate the interesting delusion with a delight which it is not easy to explain.
B.Has not this been explained by Lucretius, where he describes a shipwreck; and says, the Spectators receive pleasure from feeling themselves safe on land? and by Akenside, in his beautiful poem on the Pleasures of Imagination, who ascribes it to our finding objects for the due exertion of our passions?
P. We must not confound our sensations at the contemplation of real misery with those which we experience at the scenical representations of tragedy. The spectators of a shipwreck may be attracted by the dignity and novelty of the object; and from these may be said to receive pleasure; but not from the distress of the sufferers. An ingenious writer, who has criticised this dialogue in the English Review for August, 1789, adds, that one great source of our pleasure from scenical distress arises from our, at the same time, generally contemplating one of the noblest objects of nature, that of Virtue triumphant over every difficulty and oppression, or supporting its votary under every suffering: or, where this does not occur, that our minds are relieved by the justice of some signal punishment awaiting the delinquent. But, besides this, at the exhibition of a good tragedy, we are not only amused by the dignity, and novelty, and beauty, of the objects before us; but, if any distressful circumstances occur too forcible for our sensibility, we can voluntarily exert ourselves, and recollect, that the scenery is not real: and thus not only the pain, which we had received from the apparent distress, is lessened, but a new source of pleasure is opened to us, similar to that which we frequently have felt on awaking from a distressful dream; we are glad that it is not true. We are at the same time unwilling to relinquish the pleasure which we receive from the other interesting circumstances of the drama; and on that account quickly permit ourselves to relapse into the delusion; and thus alternately believe and disbelieve, almost every moment, the existence of the objects represented before us.
B. Have those two sovereigns of poetic land, HOMER and SHAKESPEAR, kept their works entirely free from the Horrid?—or even yourself in your third Canto?
P. The descriptions of the mangled carcasses of the companions of Ulysses, in the cave of Polypheme, is in this respect certainly objectionable, as is well observed by Scaliger. And in the play of Titus Andronicus, if that was written by Shakespear (which from its internal evidence I think very improbable), there are many horrid and disgustful circumstances. The following Canto is submitted to the candour of the critical reader, to whose opinion I shall submit in silence.
And now the Goddess founds her silver shell,And shakes with deeper tones the inchanted dell;Pale, round her grassy throne, bedew'd with tears,Flit the thin forms of Sorrows, and of Fears;5 Soft Sighs responsive whisper to the chords,And Indignations half-unsheath their swords."Thrice round the grave CIRCÆA prints her tread,And chaunts the numbers, which disturb the dead;Shakes o'er the holy earth her sable plume,10 Waves her dread wand, and strikes the echoing tomb!—Pale shoot the stars across the troubled night,The timorous moon withholds her conscious light;Shrill scream the famish'd bats, and shivering owls,And loud and long the dog of midnight howls!—
[Circæa. l. 7. Enchanter's Nightshade. Two males, one female. It was much celebrated in the mysteries of witchcraft, and for the purpose of raising the devil, as its name imports. It grows amid the mouldering bones and decayed coffins in the ruinous vaults of Sleaford-church in Lincolnshire. The superstitious ceremonies or histories belonging to some vegetables have been truly ridiculous; thus the Druids are said to have cropped the Misletoe with a golden axe or sickle; and the Bryony, or Mandrake, was said to utter a scream when its root was drawn from the ground; and that the animal which drew it up became diseased and soon died: on which account, when it was wanted for the purposes of medicine, it was usual to loosen and remove the earth about the root, and then to tie it by means of a cord to a dog's tail, who was whipped to pull it up, and was then supposed to suffer for the impiety of the action. And even at this day bits of dried root of Peony are rubbed smooth, and strung, and sold under the name of Anodyne necklaces, and tied round the necks of children, to facilitate the growth of their teeth! add to this, that in Price's History of Cornwall, a book published about ten years ago, the Virga Divinatoria, or Divining Rod, has a degree of credit given to it. This rod is of hazle, or other light wood, and held horizontally in the hand, and is said to bow towards the ore whenever the Conjurer walks over a mine. A very few years ago, in France, and even in England, another kind of divining rod has been used to discover springs of water in a similar manner, and gained some credit. And in the very last year, there were many in France, and some in England, who underwent an enchantment without any divining rod at all, and believed themselves to be affected by an invisible agent, which the Enchanter called Animal Magnetism!]
—Then yawns the bursting ground!—twoimps obsceneRise on broad wings, and hail the baleful queen;Each with dire grin salutes the potent wand,And leads the sorceress with his sooty hand;Onward they glide, where sheds the sickly yew20 O'er many a mouldering bone its nightly dew;The ponderous portals of the church unbar,—Hoarse on their hinge the ponderous portals jar;As through the colour'd glass the moon-beam falls,Huge shapeless spectres quiver on the walls;25 Low murmurs creep along the hollow ground,And to each step the pealing ailes resound;By glimmering lamps, protecting saints among,The shrines all tremble as they pass along,O'er the still choir with hideous laugh they move,30 (Fiends yell below, and angels weep above!)Their impious march to God's high altar bend,With feet impure the sacred steps ascend;With wine unbless'd the holy chalice stain,Assume the mitre, and the cope profane;35 To heaven their eyes in mock devotion throw,And to the cross with horrid mummery bow;Adjure by mimic rites the powers above,And plite alternate their Satanic love.
Avaunt, ye Vulgar! from her sacred groves40 With maniac step the Pythian LAURA moves;Full of the God her labouring bosom sighs,Foam on her lips, and fury in her eyes,Strong writhe her limbs, her wild dishevell'd hairStarts from her laurel-wreath, and swims in air.—45 WhiletwentyPriests the gorgeous shrine surroundCinctur'd with ephods, and with garlands crown'd,
[Laura. l. 40. Prunus. Lauro-cerasus. Twenty males, one female. The Pythian priestess is supposed to have been made drunk with infusion of laurel-leaves when she delivered her oracles. The intoxication or inspiration is finely described by Virgil. Æn. L. vi. The distilled water from laurel-leaves is, perhaps, the most sudden poison we are acquainted with in this country. I have seen about two spoonfuls of it destroy a large pointer dog in less than ten minutes. In a smaller dose it is said to produce intoxication: on this account there is reason to believe it acts in the same manner as opium and vinous spirit; but that the dose is not so well ascertained. See note on Tremella. It is used in the Ratafie of the distillers, by which some dram-drinkers have been suddenly killed. One pint of water, distilled from fourteen pounds of black cherry stones bruised, has the same deleterious effect, destroying as suddenly as laurel-water. It is probable Apricot-kernels, Peach-leaves, Walnut-leaves, and whatever possesses the kernel-flavour, may have similar qualities.]
Contending hosts and trembling nations waitThe firm immutable behests of Fate;—She speaks in thunder from her golden throne50 With wordsunwill'd, and wisdom not her own.
So on his NIGHTMARE through the evening fogFlits the squab Fiend o'er fen, and lake, and bog;Seeks some love-wilder'd Maid with sleep oppress'd,Alights, and grinning fits upon her breast.55 —Such as of late amid the murky skyWas mark'd by FUSELI'S poetic eye;Whose daring tints, with SHAKESPEAR'S happiest grace,Gave to the airy phantom form and place.—Back o'er her pillow sinks her blushing head,60 Her snow-white limbs hang helpless from the bed;While with quick sighs, and suffocative breath,Her interrupted heart-pulse swims in death.—Then shrieks of captured towns, and widows' tears,Pale lovers stretch'd upon their blood-stain'd biers,65 The headlong precipice that thwarts her flight,The trackless desert, the cold starless night,And stern-eye'd Murder with his knife behind,In dread succession agonize her mind.O'er her fair limbs convulsive tremors fleet,70 Start in her hands, and struggle in her feet;In vain to scream with quivering lips she tries,And strains in palsy'd lids her tremulous eyes;In vain shewillsto run, fly, swim, walk, creep;The WILL presides not in the bower of SLEEP.75 —On her fair bosom sits the Demon-ApeErect, and balances his bloated shape;
[The Will presides not.1. 74. Sleep consists in the abolition of all voluntary power, both over our muscular motions and our ideas; for we neither walk nor reason in sleep. But, at the same time, many of our muscular motions, and many of our ideas, continue to be excited into action in consequence of internal irritations and of internal sensations; for the heart and arteries continue to beat, and we experience variety of passions, and even hunger and thirst in our dreams. Hence I conclude, that our nerves of sense are not torpid or inert during sleep; but that they are only precluded from the perception of external objects, by their external organs being rendered unfit to transmit to them the appulses of external bodies, during the suspension of the power of volition; thus the eye-lids are closed in sleep, and I suppose the tympanum of the car is not stretched, because they are deprived of the voluntary exertions of the muscles appropriated to these purposes; and it is probable something similar happens to the external apparatus of our other organs of sense, which may render them unfit for their office of perception during sleep: for milk put into the mouths of sleeping babes occasions them to swallow and suck; and, if the eye-lid is a little opened in the day-light by the exertions of disturbed sleep, the person dreams of being much dazzled. See first Interlude.]
Rolls in their marble orbs his Gorgon-eyes,And drinks with leathern ears her tender cries.
Arm'd with her ivory beak, and talon-hands,80 Descending FICA dives into the sands;Chamber'd in earth with cold oblivion lies;Nor heeds,ye Suitor-train, your amorous sighs;Erewhile with renovated beauty blooms,Mounts into air, and moves her leafy plumes.85 —Where HAMPS and MANIFOLD, their cliffs among,Each in his flinty channel winds along;With lucid lines the dusky Moor divides,Hurrying to intermix their sister tides.
[When there arises in sleep a painful desire to exert the voluntary motions, it is called the Nightmare or Incubus. When the sleep becomes so imperfect that some muscular motions obey this exertion of desire, people have walked about, and even performed some domestic offices in sleep; one of these sleep-walkers I have frequently seen: once she smelt of a tube-rose, and sung, and drank a dish of tea in this state; her awaking was always attended with prodigious surprize, and even fear; this disease had daily periods, and seemed to be of the epileptic kind.]
[Ficus indica. l. 80. Indian Fig-tree. Of the glass Polygamy. This large tree rises with opposite branches on all sides, with long egged leaves; each branch emits a slender flexile depending appendage from its summit like a cord, which roots into the earth and rises again. Sloan. Hist. of Jamaica. Lin. Spec. Plant. See Capri-ficus.]
Where still their silver-bosom'd Nymphs abhor,90 The blood-smear'd mansion of gigantic THOR,——Erst, fires volcanic in the marble wombOf cloud-wrapp'd WETTON raised the massy dome;Rocks rear'd on rocks in huge disjointed pilesForm the tall turrets, and the lengthen'd ailes;
[Gigantic Thor.l. 90. Near the village of Wetton, a mile or two above Dove-Dale, near Ashburn in Dirbyshire, there is a spacious cavern about the middle of the ascent of the mountain, which still retains the Name of Thor's house; below is an extensive and romantic common, where the rivers Hamps and Manifold sink into the earth, and rise again in Ham gardens, the seat of John Port, Esq. about three miles below. Where these rivers rise again there are impressions resembling Fish, which appear to be of Jasper bedded in Limestone. Calcareous Spars, Shells converted into a kind of Agate, corallines in Marble, ores of Lead, Copper, and Zinc, and many strata of Flint, or Chert, and of Toadstone, or Lava, abound in this part of the country. The Druids are said to have offered human sacrifices inclosed in wicker idols to Thor. Thursday had its name from this Deity.
The broken appearance of the surface of many parts of this country; with the Swallows, as they are called, or basons on some of the mountains, like volcanic Craters, where the rain-water sinks into the earth; and the numerous large stones, which seem to have been thrown over the land by volcanic explosions; as well as the great masses of Toadstone or Lava; evince the existence of violent earthquakes at some early period of the world. At this time the channels of these subterraneous rivers seem to have been formed, when a long tract of rocks were raised by the sea flowing in upon the central fires, and thus producing an irresistable explosion of steam; and when these rocks again subsided, their parts did not exactly correspond, but left a long cavity arched over in this operation of nature. The cavities at Castleton and Buxton in Derbyshire seem to have had a similar origin, as well as this cavern termed Thor's house. See Mr. Whitehurst's and Dr. Hutton's Theories of the Earth.]
95 Broad ponderous piers sustain the roof, and wideBranch the vast rain-bow ribs from side to side.While from above descends in milky streamsOne scanty pencil of illusive beams,Suspended crags and gaping gulphs illumes,100 And gilds the horrors of the deepen'd glooms.—Here oft the Naiads, as they chanced to playNear the dread Fane on THOR'S returning day,Saw from red altars streams of guiltless bloodStain their green reed-beds, and pollute their flood;105 Heard dying babes in wicker prisons wail,And shrieks of matrons thrill the affrighted Gale;While from dark caves infernal Echoes mock,And Fiends triumphant shout from every rock!—-So still the Nymphs emerging lift in air110 Their snow-white shoulders and their azure hair;Sail with sweet grace the dimpling streams along,Listening the Shepherd's or the Miner's song;But, when afar they view the giant-cave,On timorous fins they circle on the wave,115 With streaming eyes and throbbing hearts recoil,Plunge their fair forms, and dive beneath the soil.—Closed round their heads reluctant eddies sink,And wider rings successive dash the brink.—Three thousand steps in sparry clefts they stray,120 Or seek through sullen mines their gloomy way;On beds of Lava sleep in coral cells,Or sigh o'er jasper fish, and agate shells.Till, where famed ILAM leads his boiling floodsThrough flowery meadows and impending woods,125 Pleased with light spring they leave the dreary night,And 'mid circumfluent surges rise to light;Shake their bright locks, the widening vale pursue,Their sea-green mantles fringed with pearly dew;In playful groups by towering THORP they move,130 Bound o'er the foaming wears, and rush into the Dove.
With fierce distracted eye IMPATIENS stands,Swells her pale cheeks, and brandishes her hands,
[Impatiens.l. 131. Touch me not. The seed vessel consists of one cell with five divisions; each of these, when the seed is ripe, on being touched, suddenly folds itself into a spiral form, leaps from the stalk and disperses the seeds to a great distance by it's elasticity. The capsule of the geranium and the beard of wild oats are twisted for a similar purpose, and dislodge their seeds on wet days, when the ground is best fitted to receive them. Hence one of these, with its adhering capsule or beard fixed on a stand, serves the purpose of an hygrometer, twisting itself more or less according to the moisture of the air.
The awn of barley is furnished with stiff points, which, like the teeth of a saw, are all turned towards the point of it; as this long awn lies upon the ground, it extends itself in the moist air of night, and pushes forwards the barley corn, which it adheres to; in the day it shortens as it dries; and as these points prevent it from receding, it draws up its pointed end; and thus, creeping like a worm, will travel many feet from the parent stem. That very ingenious Mechanic Philosopher, Mr. Edgeworth, once made on this principle a wooden automaton; its back consisted of soft Fir-wood, about an inch square, and four feet long, made of pieces cut the cross-way in respect to the fibres of the wood, and glued together: it had two feet before, and two behind, which supported the back horizontally; but were placed with their extremities, which were armed with sharp points of iron, bending backwards. Hence, in moist weather, the back lengthened, and the two foremost feet were pushed forwards; in dry weather the hinder feet were drawn after, as the obliquity of the points of the feet prevented it from receding. And thus, in a month or two, it walked across the room which it inhabited. Might not this machine be applied as an Hygrometer to some meteorological purpose?]
With rage and hate the astonish'd groves alarms,And hurls her infants from her frantic arms.135 —So when MEDÆA left her native soilUnaw'd by danger, unsubdued by toil;Her weeping sire and beckoning friends withstood,And launch'd enamour'd on the boiling flood;One ruddy boy her gentle lips caress'd,140 And one fair girl was pillow'd on her breast;
While high in air the golden treasure burns,And Love and Glory guide the prow by turns.But, when Thessalia's inauspicious plainReceived the matron-heroine from the main;145 While horns of triumph sound, and altars burn,And shouting nations hail their Chief's return:Aghaft, She saw new-deck'd the nuptial bed,And proud CREUSA to the temple led;Saw her in JASON'S mercenary arms150 Deride her virtues, and insult her charms;Saw her dear babes from fame and empire torn,In foreign realms deserted and forlorn;Her love rejected, and her vengeance braved,By Him her beauties won, her virtues saved.—155 With stern regard she eyed the traitor-king,And felt, Ingratitude! thy keenest sting;"Nor Heaven," She cried, "nor Earth, nor Hell can hold"A Heart abandon'd to the thirst of Gold!"Stamp'd with wild foot, and shook her horrent brow,160 And call'd the furies from their dens below.—Slow out of earth, before the festive crowds,On wheels of fire, amid a night of clouds,Drawn by fierce fiends arose a magic car,Received the Queen, and hovering flamed in air.—165 As with raised hands the suppliant traitors kneelAnd fear the vengeance they deserve to feel,Thrice with parch'd lips her guiltless babes she press'd,And thrice she clasp'd them to her tortur'd breast;Awhile with white uplifted eyes she stood,170 Then plung'd her trembling poniards in their blood."Go, kiss your sire! go, share the bridal mirth!"She cry'd, and hurl'd their quivering limbs on earth.Rebellowing thunders rock the marble towers,And red-tongued lightnings shoot their arrowy showers;175 Earth yawns!—the crashing ruin sinks!—o'er allDeath with black hands extends his mighty Pall;Their mingling gore the Fiends of Vengeance quaff,And Hell receives them with convulsive laugh.
Round the vex'd isles where fierce tornados roar,180 Or tropic breezes sooth the sultry shore;What time the eve her gauze pellucid spreadsO'er the dim flowers, and veils the misty meads;Slow, o'er the twilight sands or leafy walks,With gloomy dignity DICTAMNA stalks;
[Dictamnus.l. 184. Fraxinella. In the still evenings of dry seasons this plant emits an inflammable air or gas, and flashes on the approach of a candle. There are instances of human creatures who have taken fire spontaneously, and been totally consumed. Phil. Trans.
The odours of many flowers, so delightful to our sense of smell, as well as the disgreeable scents of others, are owing to the exhalation of their essential oils. These essential oils have greater or less volatility, and are all inflammable; many of them are poisons to us, as these of Laurel and Tobacco; others possess a narcotic quality, as is evinced by the oil of cloves instantly relieving slight tooth-achs; from oil of cinnamon relieving the hiccup; and balsam of peru relieving the pain of some ulcers. They are all deleterious to certain insects, and hence their use in the vegetable economy being produced in flowers or leaves to protect them from the depredations of their voracious enemies. One of the essential oils, that of turpentine, is recommended, by M. de Thosse, for the purpose of destroying insects which infect both vegetables and animals. Having observed that the trees were attacked by multitudes of small insects of different colours (pucins ou pucerons), which injured their young branches, he destroyed them all intirely in the following manner: he put into a bowl a few handfuls of earth, on which he poured a small quantity of oil of turpentine; he then beat the whole together with a spatula, pouring on it water till it became of the consistence of soup; with this mixture he moistened the ends of the branches, and both the insects and their eggs were destroyed, and other insects kept aloof by the scent of the turpentine. He adds, that he destroyed the fleas of his puppies by once bathing them in warm water impregnated with oil of turpentine. Mem. d'Agriculture, An. 1787, Trimest. Printemp. p. 109. I sprinkled some oil of turpentine, by means of a brush, on some branches of a nectarine-tree, which was covered with the aphis; but it killed both the insect and the branches: a solution of arsenic much diluted did the same. The shops of medicine are supplied with resins, balsams, and essential oils; and the tar and pitch, for mechanical purposes, arc produced from these vegetable secretions.]
185 In sulphurous eddies round the weird damePlays the light gas, or kindles into flame.If rests the traveller his weary head,Grim MANCINELLA haunts the mossy bed,Brews her black hebenon, and, stealing near,190 Pours the curst venom in his tortured ear.—Wide o'er the mad'ning throng URTICA flingsHer barbed shafts, and darts her poison'd stings.
[Mancinella, I. 188. Hyppomane. With the milky juice of this tree the Indians poison their arrows; the dew-drops, which fall from it, are so caustic as to blister the skin, and produce dangerous ulcers; whence many have found their death by sleeping under its shade. Variety of noxious plants abound in all countries; in our own the deadly nightshade, henbane, hounds-tongue, and many others, are seen in almost every high road untouched by animals. Some have asked, what is the use of such abundance of poisons? The nauseous or pungent juices of some vegetables, like the thorns of others, are given them for their defence from the depredations of animals; hence the thorny plants are in general wholesome and agreeable food to graminivorous animals. See note on Ilex. The flowers or petals of plants are perhaps in general more acrid than their leaves; hence they are much seldomer eaten by insects. This seems to have been the use of the essential oil in the vegetable economy, as observed above in the notes on Dictamnus and on Ilex. The fragrance of plants is thus a part of their defence. These pungent or nauseous juices of vegetables have supplied the science of medicine with its principal materials, such as purge, vomit, intoxicate, &c.]
[Urtica. I. 191. Nettle. The sting has a bag at its base, and a perforation near its point, exactly like the stings of wasps and the teeth of adders; Hook, Microgr. p. 142. Is the fluid contained in this bag, and pressed through the perforation into the wound, made by the point, a caustic essential oil, or a concentrated vegetable acid? The vegetable poisons, like the animal ones, produce more sudden and dangerous effects, when instilled into a wound, than when taken into the stomach; whence the families of Marfi and Psilli, in antient Rome, sucked the poison without injury out of wounds made by vipers, and were supposed to be indued with supernatural powers for this purpose. By the experiments related by Beccaria, it appears that four or five times the quantity, taken by the mouth, had about equal effects with that infused into a wound. The male flowers of the nettle are separate from the female, and the anthers are seen in fair weather to burst with force, and to discharge a dust, which hovers about the plant like a cloud.]
And fell LOBELIA'S suffocating breathLoads the dank pinion of the gale with death.—195 With fear and hate they blast the affrighted groves,Yet own with tender care theirkindred Loves!—So, where PALMIRA 'mid her wasted plains,Her shatter'd aqueducts, and prostrate sanes,
[Lobelia. I.193. Longiflora. Grows in the West Indies, and spreads such deleterious exhalations around it, that an oppression of the breast is felt on approaching it at many feet distance when placed in the corner of a room or hot-house. Ingenhouz, Exper. on Air, p. 14.6. Jacquini hort. botanic. Vindeb. The exhalations from ripe fruit, or withering leaves, are proved much to injure the air in which they are confined; and, it is probable, all those vegetables which emit a strong scent may do this in a greater or less degree, from the Rose to the Lobelia; whence the unwholesomeness in living perpetually in such an atmosphere of perfume as some people wear about their hair, or carry in their handkerchiefs. Either Boerhaave or Dr. Mead have affirmed they were acquainted with a poisonous fluid whose vapour would presently destroy the person who sat near it. And it is well known, that the gas from fermenting liquors, or obtained from lime-stone, will destroy animals immersed in it, as well as the vapour of the Grotto del Cani near Naples.]
[So, where Palmira.I. 197. Among the ruins of Palmira, which are dispersed not only over the plains but even in the deserts, there is one single colonade above 2600 yards long, the bases of the Corinthian columns of which exceed the height of a man: and yet this row is only a small part of the remains of that one edifice! Volney's Travels.]
(As the bright orb of breezy midnight pours200 Long threads of silver through her gaping towers,O'er mouldering tombs, and tottering columns gleams,And frosts her deserts with diffusive beams),Sad o'er the mighty wreck in silence bends,Lifts her wet eyes, her tremulous hands extends.—205 If from lone cliffs a bursting rill expandsIts transient course, and sinks into the sands;O'er the moist rock the fell Hyæna prowls,The Leopard hisses, and the Panther growls;On quivering wing the famish'd Vulture screams,210 Dips his dry beak, and sweeps the gushing streams;With foamy jaws, beneath, and sanguine tongue,Laps the lean Wolf, and pants, and runs along;Stern stalks the Lion, on the rustling brinksHears the dread Snake, and trembles as he drinks;215 Quick darts the scaly Monster o'er the plain,Fold after fold, his undulating train;And, bending o'er the lake his crested brow,Starts at the Crocodile, that gapes below.
Where seas of glass with gay reflections smile220 Round the green coasts of Java's palmy isle;A spacious plain extends its upland scene,Rocks rise on rocks, and fountains gush between;Soft zephyrs blow, eternal summers reign,And showers prolific bless the soil,—in vain!225 —No spicy nutmeg scents the vernal gales,Nor towering plaintain shades the mid-day vales;No grassy mantle hides the sable hills,No flowery chaplet crowns the trickling rills;Nor tufted moss, nor leathery lichen creeps230 In russet tapestry o'er the crumbling steeps.—No step retreating, on the sand impress'd,Invites the visit of a second guest;No refluent fin the unpeopled stream divides,No revolant pinion cleaves the airy tides;
235 Nor handed moles, nor beaked worms return,That mining pass the irremeable bourn.—Fierce in dread silence on the blasted heathFell UPAS sits, the HYDRA-TREE of death.Lo! from one root, the envenom'd soil below,240 A thousand vegetative serpents grow;In shining rays the scaly monster spreadsO'er ten square leagues his far-diverging heads;Or in one trunk entwists his tangled form,Looks o'er the clouds, and hisses in the storm.
[Upas. l. 238. There is a poison-tree in the island of Java, which is said by its effluvia to have depopulated the country for 12 or 14 miles round the place of its growth. It is called, in the Malayan language, Bohon-Upas; with the juice of it the most poisonous arrows are prepared; and, to gain this, the condemned criminals are sent to the tree with proper direction both to get the juice and to secure themselves from the malignant exhalations of the tree; and are pardoned if they bring back a certain quantity of the poison. But by the registers there kept, not one in four are said to return. Not only animals of all kinds, both quadrupeds, fish, and birds, but all kinds of vegetables also are destroyed by the effluvia of the noxious tree; so that, in a district of 12 or 14 miles round it, the face of the earth is quite barren and rocky, intermixed only with the skeletons of men and animals; affording a scene of melancholy beyond what poets have described or painters delineated. Two younger trees of its own species are said to grow near it. See London Magazine for 1784, or 1783. Translated from a description of the poison-tree of the island of Java, written in Dutch by N.P. Foereh. For a further account of it, see a note at the end of the work.]
245 Steep'd in fell poison, as his sharp teeth part,A thousand tongues in quick vibration dart;Snatch the proud Eagle towering o'er the heath,Or pounce the Lion, as he stalks beneath;Or strew, as marshall'd hosts contend in vain,250 With human skeletons the whiten'd plain.—Chain'd at his root two scion-demons dwell,Breathe the faint hiss, or try the shriller yell;Rise, fluttering in the air on callow wings,And aim at insect-prey their little stings.255 So Time's strong arms with sweeping scythe eraseArt's cumberous works, and empires, from their base;While each young Hour its sickle fine employs,And crops the sweet buds of domestic joys!
With blushes bright as morn fair ORCHIS charms,260 And lulls her infant in her fondling arms;
[Orchis. l. 259. The Orchis morio in the circumstance of the parent-root shrivelling up and dying, as the young one increases, is not only analogous to other tuberous or knobby roots, but also to some bulbous roots, as the tulip. The manner of the production of herbaceous plants from their various perennial roots, seems to want further investigation, as their analogy is not yet clearly established. The caudex, or true root, in the orchis lies above the knob; and from this part the fibrous roots and the new knob are produced. In the tulip the caudex lies below the bulb; from whence proceed the fibrous roots and the new bulbs; and I suspect the tulip-root, after it has flowered, dies like the orchis-root; for the stem of the last year's tulip lies on the outside, and not in the center of the new bulb; which I am informed does not happen in the three or four first years when raised from seed, when it only produces a stem, and slender leaves without flowering. In the tulip-root, dissected in the early spring, just before it begins to shoot, a perfect flower is seen in its center; and between the first and second coat the large next year's bulb is, I believe, produced; between the second and third coat, and between this and the fourth coat, and perhaps further, other less and less bulbs are visible, all adjoining to the caudex at the bottom of the mother-bulb; and which, I am told, require as many years before they will slower, as the number of the coats with which they are covered. This annual reproduction of the tulip-root induces some florists to believe that tulip-roots never die naturally, as they lose so few of them; whereas the hyacinth-roots, I am informed, will not last above five or seven years after they have flowered.
The hyacinth-root differs from the tulip-root, as the stem of the last year's flower is always found in the center of the root, and the new off-sets arise from the caudex below the bulb, but not beneath any of the concentric coats of the root, except the external one: hence Mr. Eaton, an ingenious florist of Derby, to whom I am indebted for most of the observations in this note, concludes, that the hyacinth-root does not perish annually after it has flowered like the tulip. Mr. Eaton gave me a tulip root which had been set too deep in the earth, and the caudex had elongated itself near an inch, and the new bulb was formed above the old one, and detached from it, instead of adhering to its side.
The caudex of the ranunculus, cultivated by the florists, lies above the claw-like root; in this the old root or claws die annually, like the tulip and orchis, and the new claws, which are seen above the old ones, draw down the caudex lower into the earth. The same is said to happen to Scabiosa, or Devil's bit, and some other plants, as valerian and greater plantain; the new fibrous roots rising round the caudex above the old ones, the inferior end of the root becomes stumped, as if cut off, after the old fibres are decayed, and the caudex is drawn down into the earth by these new roots. See Arum and Tulipa.]
Soft playAffectionround her bosom's throne,And guards his life, forgetful of her own.So wings the wounded Deer her headlong flight,Pierced by some ambush'd archer of the night,265 Shoots to the woodlands with her bounding fawn,And drops of blood bedew the conscious lawn;There hid in shades she shuns the cheerful day,Hangs o'er her young, and weeps her life away.
So stood Eliza on the wood-crown'd height,270 O'er Minden's plain, spectatress of the sight,Sought with bold eye amid the bloody strifeHer dearer self, the partner of her life;From hill to hill the rushing host pursued,And view'd his banner, or believed she view'd.275 Pleased with the distant roar, with quicker treadFast by his hand one lisping boy she led;And one fair girl amid the loud alarmSlept on her kerchief, cradled by her arm;While round her brows bright beams of Honour dart,280 And Love's warm eddies circle round her heart
—Near and more near the intrepid Beauty press'd,Saw through the driving smoke his dancing crest,Heard the exulting shout, "they run! they run!""Great GOD!" she cried, "He's safe! the battle's won!"285 —A ball now hisses through the airy tides,(Some Fury wing'd it, and some Demon guides!)Parts the fine locks, her graceful head that deck,Wounds her fair ear, and sinks into her neck;The red stream, issuing from her azure veins,290 Dyes her white veil, her ivory bosom stains.——"Ah me!" she cried, and, sinking on the ground,Kiss'd her dear babes, regardless of the wound;"Oh, cease not yet to beat, thou Vital Urn!"Wait, gushing Life, oh, wait my Love's return!—295 "Hoarse barks the wolf, the vulture screams from far!"The angel, Pity, shuns the walks of war!——"Oh, spare ye War-hounds, spare their tender age!—"On me, on me," she cried, "exhaust your rage!"—Then with weak arms her weeping babes caress'd,300 And sighing bid them in her blood-stain'd vest.From tent to tent the impatient warrior flies,Fear in his heart, and frenzy in his eyes;Eliza's name along the camp he calls,Eliza echoes through the canvas walls;305 Quick through the murmuring gloom his footsteps tread,O'er groaning heaps, the dying and the dead,Vault o'er the plain, and in the tangled wood,Lo! dead Eliza weltering in her blood!——Soon hears his listening son the welcome sounds,310 With open arms and sparkling eyes he bounds:—"Speak low," he cries, and gives his little hand,"Eliza sleeps upon the dew-cold sand;"Poor weeping Babe with bloody fingers press'd,"And tried with pouting lips her milkless breast;315 "Alas! we both with cold and hunger quake—"Why do you weep?—Mama will soon awake."—"She'll wake no more!" the hopeless mourner criedUpturn'd his eyes, and clasp'd his hands, and sigh'd;Stretch'd on the ground awhile entranc'd he lay,320 And press'd warm kisses on the lifeless clay;And then unsprung with wild convulsive start,And all the Father kindled in his heart;"Oh, Heavens!" he cried, "my first rash vow forgive!"These bind to earth, for these I pray to live!"—325 Round his chill babes he wrapp'd his crimson vest,And clasp'd them sobbing to his aching breast.
TwoHarlot-Nymphs, the fair CUSCUTAS, pleaseWith labour'd negligence, and studied ease;
[Cuscuta.l. 327. Dodder. Four males, two females. This parasite plant (the seed splitting without cotyledons), protrudes a spiral body, and not endeavouring to root itself in the earth ascends the vegetables in its vicinity, spirally W.S.E. or contrary to the movement of the sun; and absorbs its nourishment by vessels apparently inserted into its supporters. It bears no leaves, except here and there a scale, very small, membranous, and close under the branch. Lin. Spec. Plant. edit. a Reichard. Vol. I. p. 352. The Rev. T. Martyn, in his elegant letters on botany, adds, that, not content with support, where it lays hold, there it draws its nourishment; and at length, in gratitude for all this, strangles its entertainer. Let. xv. A contest for air and light obtains throughout the whole vegetable world; shrubs rise above herbs; and, by precluding the air and light from them, injure or destroy them; trees suffocate or incommode shrubs; the parasite climbing plants, as Ivy, Clematis, incommode the taller trees; and other parasites, which exist without having roots on the ground, as Misletoe, Tillandsia, Epidendrum, and the mosses and funguses, incommode them all.
Some of the plants with voluble stems ascend other plants spirally east-south-west, as Humulus, Hop, Lonicera, Honey-suckle, Tamus, black Bryony, Helxine. Others turn their spiral stems west-south-east, as Convolvulus, Corn-bind, Phaseolus, Kidney-bean, Basella, Cynanche, Euphorbia, Eupatorium. The proximate or final causes of this difference have not been investigated. Other plants are furnished with tendrils for the purpose of climbing: if the tendril meets with nothing to lay hold of in its first revolution, it makes another revolution; and so on till it wraps itself quite up like a cork-screw; hence, to a careless observer, it appears to move gradually backwards and forwards, being seen sometimes pointing eastward and sometimes westward. One of the Indian grasses, Panicum arborescens, whose stem is no thicker than a goose-quill, rises as high as the tallest trees in this contest for light and air. Spec. Plant a Reichard, Vol. I. p. 161. The tops of many climbing plants are tender from their quick growth; and, when deprived of their acrimony by boiling, are an agreeable article of food. The Hop-tops are in common use. I have eaten the tops of white Bryony, Bryonia alba, and found them nearly as grateful as Asparagus, and think this plant might be profitably cultivated as an early garden-vegetable. The Tamus (called black Bryony), was less agreeable to the taste when boiled. See Galanthus.]
In the meek garb of modest worth disguised,330 The eye averted, and the smile chastised,With sly approach they spread their dangerous charms,And round their victim wind their wiry arms.So by Scamander when LAOCOON stood,Where Troy's proud turrets glitter'd in the flood,335 Raised high his arm, and with prophetic callTo shrinking realms announced her fatal fall;Whirl'd his fierce spear with more than mortal force,And pierced the thick ribs of the echoing horse;
Two Serpent-forms incumbent on the main,340 Lashing the white waves with redundant train,Arch'd their blue necks, and (hook their towering crests,And plough'd their foamy way with speckled breasts;Then darting fierce amid the affrighted throngs,Roll'd their red eyes, and shot their forked tongues,—345 —Two daring Youths to guard the hoary fireThwart their dread progress, and provoke their ire.Round sire and sons the scaly monsters roll'd,Ring above ring, in many a tangled fold,Close and more close their writhing limbs surround,350 And fix with foamy teeth the envenom'd wound.—With brow upturn'd to heaven the holy SageIn silent agony sustains their rage;While each fond Youth, in vain, with piercing criesBends on the tortured Sire his dying eyes.355 "Drink deep, sweet youths" seductive VITIS cries,The maudlin tear-drop glittering in her eyes;Green leaves and purple clusters crown her head,And the tall Thyrsus stays her tottering tread.—Fivehapless swains with soft assuasive smiles360 The harlot meshes in her deathful toils;"Drink deep," she carols, as she waves in airThe mantling goblet, "and forget your care."—O'er the dread feast malignant Chemia scowls,And mingles poison in the nectar'd bowls;365 Fell Gout peeps grinning through the flimsy scene,And bloated Dropsy pants behind unseen;Wrapp'd in his robe white Lepra hides his stains,And silent Frenzy writhing bites his chains.
[Vitis. 1. 355. Vine. Five males, one female. The juice of the ripe grape is a nutritive and agreeable food, consisting chiefly of sugar and mucilage. The chemical process of fermentation converts this sugar into spirit, converts food into poison! And it has thus become the curse of the Christian world, producing more than half of our chronical diseases; which Mahomet observed, and forbade the use of it to his disciples. The Arabians invented distillation; and thus, by obtaining the spirit of fermented liquors in a less diluted slate, added to its destructive quality. A Theory of the Diabætes and Dropsy, produced by drinking fermented or spirituous liquors, is explained in a Treatise on the inverted motions of the lymphatic system, published by Dr. Darwin. Cadell.]
So when PROMETHEUS braved the Thunderer's ire,370 Stole from his blazing throne etherial fire,And, lantern'd in his breast, from realms of dayBore the bright treasure to his Man of clay;—High on cold Caucasus by VULCAN bound,The lean impatient Vulture fluttering round,375 His writhing limbs in vain he twists and strainsTo break or loose the adamantine chains.The gluttonous bird, exulting in his pangs,Tears his swoln liver with remorseless fangs.
[Prometheus, l. 369. The antient story of Prometheus, who concealed in his bosom the fire he had stolen, and afterwards had a vulture perpetually gnawing his liver, affords so apt an allegory for the effects of drinking spirituous liquors, that one should be induced to think the art of distillation, as well as some other chemical processes (such as calcining gold), had been known in times of great antiquity, and lost again. The swallowing drams cannot be better represented in hieroglyphic language than by taking fire into one's bosom; and certain it is, that the general effect of drinking fermented or spirituous liquors is an inflamed, schirrous, or paralytic liver, with its various critical or consequential diseases, as leprous eruptions on the face, gout, dropsy, epilepsy, insanity. It is remarkable, that all the diseases from drinking spirituous or fermented liquors are liable to become hereditary, even to the third generation; gradually increasing, if the cause be continued, till the family becomes extinct.]
The gentle CYCLAMEN with dewy eye380 Breathes o'er her lifeless babe the parting sigh;And, bending low to earth, with pious handsInhumes her dear Departed in the sands."Sweet Nursling! withering in thy tender hour,"Oh, sleep," She cries, "and rise a fairer flower!"385 —So when the Plague o'er London's gasping crowdsShook her dank wing, and steer'd her murky clouds;When o'er the friendless bier no rites were read,No dirge slow-chanted, and no pall out-spread;While Death and Night piled up the naked throng,390 And Silence drove their ebon cars along;Six lovely daughters, and their father, sweptTo the throng'd grave CLEONE saw, and wept;
[Cyclamen. 1. 379. Shew-bread, or Sow-bread. When the seeds are ripe, the stalk of the flower gradually twists itself spirally downwards, till it touches the ground, and forcibly penetrating the earth lodges its seeds; which are thought to receive nourishment from the parent root, as they are said not to be made to grow in any other situation.
The Trifolium subterraneum, subterraneous trefoil, is another plant, which buries its seed, the globular head of the seed penetrating the earth; which, however, in this plant may be only an attempt to conceal its seeds from the ravages of birds; for there is another trefoil, the trifolium globosum, or globular woolly-headed trefoil, which has a curious manner of concealing its seeds; the lower florets only have corols and are fertile; the upper ones wither into a kind of wool, and, forming a bead, completely conceal the fertile calyxes. Lin. Spec. Plant, a Reichard.]
Her tender mind, with meek Religion fraught,Drank all-resigned Affliction's bitter draught;395 Alive and listening to the whisper'd groanOf others' woes, unconscious of her own!—One smiling boy, her last sweet hope, she warmsHushed on her bosom, circled in her arms,—Daughter of woe! ere morn, in vain caress'd,400 Clung the cold Babe upon thy milkless breast,With feeble cries thy last sad aid required,Stretch'd its stiff limbs, and on thy lap expired!——Long with wide eye-lids on her Child she gazed,And long to heaven their tearless orbs she raised;405 Then with quick foot and throbbing heart she foundWhere Chartreuse open'd deep his holy ground;
[Where Chartreuse. l. 406. During the plague in London, 1665, one pit to receive the dead was dug in the Charter-house, 40 feet long, 16 feet wide, and about 20 feet deep; and in two weeks received 1114 bodies. During this dreadful calamity there were instances of mothers carrying their own children to those public graves, and of people delirious, or in despair from the loss of their friends, who threw themselves alive into these pits. Journal of the Plague-year in 1665, printed for E. Nutt, Royal-Exchange.]
Bore her last treasure through the midnight gloom,And kneeling dropp'd it in the mighty tomb;"I follow next!" the frantic mourner said,410 And living plunged amid the festering dead.
Where vast Ontario rolls his brineless tides,And feeds the trackless forests on his sides,Fair CASSIA trembling hears the howling woods,And trusts her tawny children to the floods.—
[Rolls his brineless tide.l. 411. Some philosophers have believed that the continent of America was not raised out of the great ocean at so early a period of time as the other continents. One reason for this opinion was, because the great lakes, perhaps nearly as large as the Mediterranean Sea, consist of fresh water. And as the sea-salt seems to have its origin from the destruction of vegetable and animal bodies, washed down by rains, and carried by rivers into lakes or seas; it would seem that this source of sea-salt had not so long existed in that country. There is, however, a more satisfactory way of explaining this circumstance; which is, that the American lakes lie above the level of the ocean, and are hence perpetually desalited by the rivers which run through them; which is not the case with the Mediterranean, into which a current from the main ocean perpetually passes.]
[Caffia.l. 413. Ten males, one female. The seeds are black, the stamens gold-colour. This is one of the American fruits, which are annually thrown on the coasts of Norway; and are frequently in so recent a state as to vegetate, when properly taken care of, the fruit of the anacardium, cashew-nut; of cucurbita lagenaria, bottlegourd; of the mimosa scandens, cocoons; of the piscidia erythrina, logwood-tree; and cocoa-nuts are enumerated by Dr. Tonning. (Amæn. Acad. 149.) amongst these emigrant seeds. The fact is truly wonderful, and cannot be accounted for but by the existence of under currents in the depths of the ocean; or from vortexes of water passing from one country to another through caverns of the earth.
Sir Hans Sloane has given an account of four kinds of seeds, which are frequently thrown by the sea upon the coasts of the islands of the northern parts of Scotland. Phil. Trans. abridged, Vol. III. p. 540. which seeds are natives of the West Indies, and seem to be brought thither by the gulf-stream described below. One of these is called, by Sir H. Sloane, Phaseolus maximus perennis, which is often also thrown on the coast of Kerry in Ireland; another is called, in Jamaica, Horse-eye-bean; and a third is called Niker in Jamaica. He adds, that the Lenticula marina, or Sargosso, grows on the rocks about Jamaica, is carried by the winds and current towards the coast of Florida, and thence into the North-American ocean, where it lies very thick on the surface of the sea.