only remind you now, that the French had persuaded themselves this was the most enlightened age of the world, and they the most enlightened people in it,.. the politest, the most amiable, the most humane of nations,.. and that a new era of philosophy, philanthropy and peace was about to commence under their auspices,..when they were upon the eve of a revolution which, for its complicated monstrosities, absurdities and horrors, is more disgraceful to human nature than any other series of events in history. Chew the cud upon this, and farewell! 39 COLLOQUY III. THE DRUIDICAL STONES. VISITATIONS OF INCLINATION would lead me to hibernate during half the year in this uncomfortable climate of Great Britain, where few men who have tasted the enjoyments of a better would willingly take up their abode, if it were not for the habits, and still more for the ties and duties which root us to our native soil. I envy the Turks for their sedentary constitutions, which seem no more to require exercise than an oyster does, or a toad in a stone. respect, I am by disposition as true a Turk as the Grand Seignior himself; and approach much nearer to one in the habit of inaction, than any person of my acquaintance. Willing however as I should be to believe, that any thing which is habitually necessary for a sound body, would be unerringly indicated by an habitual disposition for it, and that if exercise were as needful In this as food for the preservation of the animal economy, the desire of motion would recur not less regularly than hunger and thirst, it is a theory which will not bear the test; and this I know by experience. On a grey sober day, therefore, and in a tone of mind quite accordant with the season, I went out unwillingly to take the air, though if taking physic would have answered the same purpose, the dose would have been preferred as the shortest, and for that reason the least unpleasant remedy. Even on such occasions as this, it is desirable to propose to oneself some object for the satisfaction of accomplishing it, and to set out with the intention of reaching some fixed point, though it should be nothing better than a mile-stone, or a directing post. So I walked to the Circle of Stones upon the Penrith road, because there is a long hill upon the way which would give the muscles some work to perform; and because the sight of this rude monument which has stood during so many centuries, and is likely, if left to itself, to outlast any edifice that man could have erected, gives me always a feeling, which, however often it may be repeated, loses nothing of its force. The circle is of the rudest kind, consisting of single stones, unhewn and chosen without any 1 |