NOTES TO A VISION. (ALLEGORICAL). S. 3, 1. 2. Where "myriad-minded" beings ever reap. "Myriad-minded" is the noble epithet Coleridge applies to Shakspere. No other human being deserves it, and probably no other human being ever will. S. 4, 1. 6, 7. And, as at rest a quick-revolving wheel Appears, when lit by flash of lightning, "The velocity of Electricity is so great, that the most rapid motion that can be produced by art appears to be actual rest when compared with it. A wheel revolving with celerity sufficient to render its spokes invisible, when illuminated by a flash of lightning, is seen for an instant, with all its spokes distinct, as if it were in a state of absolute repose."—Somerville's Connection of the Sciences, page 313, S. 9, 1. 7. Resembling that of which great Dante sung. E quietata ciascuna in suo loco La testa e 'l collo d' un' aquila vidi DANTE del Paradiso, Canto 18. "Where," says Jeremy Taylor, at the close of his magnificent Sermon preached to the University of Dublin,' "Where is Ignatius, in whom God dwelt? Where is Dionysius the Areopagite, that bird of Paradise, that celestial Eagle?"-Taylor's Works, vol. vi. page 407. Heber's edition. S. 10, 1. 4. All truths that unevolved in one remain. "There may be created powers of some high order, as we know that there is one Eternal Power, able to feel in a single comprehensive thought all those truths of which the generations of mankind are able, by successive analysis, to discover only a few, that are perhaps to the great truths which they contain, only as the flower that is blossoming before us is to that infinity of future blossoms enveloped in it, with which, in ever-renovated beauty, it is to adorn the summers of other ages."-Brown's Philosophy of the Human Mind, vol. ii. p. 513. S. 10, lines 6-8. in depths yet deep'ning lies, More wonderful than aught Romance can feign, A vast succession of realities. "When we see such magnificent bodies united in pairs (revolving double stars), undoubtedly by the same bond of mutual gravitation which holds together our own system, and sweeping over their enormous orbits, in periods comprehending many centuries, we admit at once that they must be accomplishing ends in creation which will remain for ever unknown to man; and that we have attained a point in science where the human intellect is compelled to acknowledge its weakness, and to feel that no conception the wildest imagination can form will bear the least comparison with the intrinsic greatness of the subject."-Herschell's Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy. "All the Systems of Worlds, judging from analogy, have probably a great common centre round which they revolve as the planets round the sun. "The centre of the immeasurable universe we may conceive to be the most perfect scene of material existence, unspeakably exceeding in grandeur and beauty anything that we can represent to ourselves in this our dark abode."Sheppard. |