Headlong Hall

Gr

had walked a few paces, "these grounds hav

in summer a complete nursery of briers, a forest of thistles, a plantation of nettles, without any live stock but goats, that have eaten up all the bark of the trees. Here you see is the pedestal of a statue, with only half a leg and four toes remaining: there were many here once. When I was a boy, I u

l walks and shrubberies, bowling-greens, canals, and clumps of larch, shall rise upon its ruins. One age, sir, has brought to light the treasures of ancient learning; a second has penetrated into the depths of metaphysics; a third has brought to perfection the

the graduated harmonies of light and shade, melting into one another, as you see them on that rock over yonder. I never saw one of your improved places, as you call them, and which are nothing but big bowling-greens, like sheets of green paper, with a parcel of round cl

e the goodness to make a distinction be

what pleases the eye. And what pleases the eye? Tints variously broken and

he beautiful, and I add to them, in the laying out of grounds,

you distinguish this character, when a person w

owed to revenge himself on Milestone

ing the picturesque and the beautiful

jecting point of rock, to contemplate a little boat which

the community. That boatman, singing as he sails along, is, I have no doubt, a very happy, and,

ediately wandered from the lake to the ocean, from the little boat to a ship of the line,-"you will probably be able to point out to me the degree of improvement that you

"of mythological personages, of cours

I will ask you if you think the mariners of England are, in any one respect, morally or intellectual

, all the Persian and Grecian vessels in that memorable bay? Contemplate the progress of naval architecture, and the slow, but immense succession of concatenated intelligence, by which it has gradually attained its present stage of perfectibility. In this, as in all other branches of art and science, every generation possesses all the

se," said Mr Escot, "between sci

oportion as they are enlightened; and that, as every gener

m, because they love him, and know the reason of his orders. Now, as I have said before, all singleness of character is lost. We divide men into herds like cattle: an individual man, if you strip him of all that is extraneous to himself, is the most wretched and contemptible creature on the face of the earth. The sciences advance. True. A few years of study puts a modern mathematician in possession of more than Newton knew, and leaves him at leisure to add new discoveries of his own. Agreed. But does this make him a Newton? Does it put him in possession of that range of intellect, that grasp of mind, from which the discoveries of Newton sprang? It is mental power that I look for: if you can demonstrate the increase of that, I will give up the field. Energy-independence-individuality-disinterested virtue-active benevolence-self-oblivion-universal philanthropy-these are the qualities I desire to find, and of which I contend that every succeeding age produces fewer examples. I repeat it; th

ards the house; followed by his two companions, who both admitted that he was now leading the way to at least a temporar