or contemplates, from a sudden promontory, the distant, vast Pacific—­and feels himself a freeman in this vast theatre, and commanding each ready produced fruit of this wilderness, and each progeny of this stream—­his exaltation is not less than imperial.  He is as gentle, too, as he is great:  his emotions of tenderness keep pace with his elevation of sentiment; for he says, “These were made by a good Being, who, unsought by me, placed me here to enjoy them.”  He becomes at once a child and a king.  His mind is in himself; from hence he argues, and from hence he acts, and he argues unerringly, and acts magisterially:  his mind in himself is also in his God; and therefore he loves, and therefore he soars.’—­From the notes upon ‘The Hurricane,’ a Poem, by William Gilbert.

The Reader, I am sure, will thank me for the above quotation, which, though from a strange book, is one of the finest passages of modern English prose.

517. Richard Baxter.

    ’’Tis, by comparison, an easy task
    Earth to despise,’ &c. [’Excursion,’ Book iv. ll. 131-2.]

See, upon this subject, Baxter’s most interesting review of his own opinions and sentiments in the decline of life.  It may be found (lately reprinted) in Dr. Wordsworth’s Ecclesiastical Biography.

518. Endowment of immortal Power.

    ‘Alas! the endowment of Immortal Power,’ &c. [’Excursion,’ Ibid. ll. 206
    et seqq.]

This subject is treated at length in the Ode ’Intimations of Immortality.’

519. Samuel Daniel and Countess of Cumberland. [’Excursion,’ ibid. l. 326.]

    ‘Knowing the heart of Man is set to be,’ &c.

The passage quoted from Daniel is taken from a poem addressed to the Lady Margaret, Countess of Cumberland, and the two last lines, printed in Italics, are by him translated from Seneca.  The whole Poem is very beautiful.  I will transcribe four stanzas from it, as they contain an admirable picture of the state of a wise Man’s mind in a time of public commotion.

    Nor is he moved with all the thunder-cracks
    Of tyrants’ threats, or with the surly brow
    Of Power, that proudly sits on other’s crimes;
    Charged with more crying sins than those he checks. 
    The storms of sad confusion that may grow
    Up in the present for the coming times,
    Appal not him; that hath no side at all,
    But of himself, and knows the worst can fall.

    Although his heart (so near allied to earth)
    Cannot but pity the perplexed state
    Of troublous and distressed mortality,
    That thus make way unto the ugly birth
    Of their own sorrows, and do still beget
    Affliction upon Imbecility;
    Yet seeing thus the course of things must run,
    He looks thereon not strange, but as foredone.