wer, and the wings that are denied to our bodies are expanded
in our souls. Sublime are the circles the sun-staring creature traces in
the heavens, to us who lie stretched among the heather bloom. Could we
do the same, we should still be longing to pierce through the atmosphere
to some other planet; and an elevation of leagues above the snows of the
Himalayas would not satisfy our aspirations. But we can calculate the
distances of the stars, and are happy as Galileo in his dungeon.

Yet an Eagle we are, and therefore proud of You our Scottish mountains,
as you are of Us. Stretch yourself up to your full height as we now do
to ours--and let "Andes, giant of the Western Star," but dare to look at
us, and we will tear the "meteor standard to the winds unfurled" from
his cloudy hands. There you stand--and were you to rear your summits
much higher into heaven, you would alarm the hidden stars.

Yet we have seen you higher--but it was in storm. In calm like this you
do well to look beautiful--your solemn altitude suits the sunny season,
and the peaceful sky. But when the thunder at mid-day would hide your
heads in a night of cloud, you thrust them through the blackness, and
show them to the glens, crowned with fire.

Are they a sea of mountains! No--they are mountains in a sea. And what a
sea! Waves of water, when at the prodigious, are never higher than the
foretop of a man-of-war. Waves of vapour--they alone are seen flying
mountains high--dashing, but howling not--and in their silent ascension,
all held together by the same spirit, but perpetually changing its
beautiful array, where order seems ever and anon to come in among
disorder, there is a grandeur that settles down in the soul of youthful
poet roaming in delirium among the mountain glooms, and "pacifies the
fever of his heart."

Call not now these vapours waves; for movement there is none among the
ledges, and ridges, and roads, and avenues, and galleries, and groves,
and houses, and churches, and castles, and fairy palaces--all framed of
mist. Far up among and above that wondrous region, through which you
hear voices of waterfalls deepening the silence, behold hundreds of
mountain-tops--blue, purple, violet--for the sun is shining straight on
some and aslant on others--and on those not at all; nor can the shepherd
at your side, though he has lived among them all his life, till after
long pondering tell you the names of those most familiar to him; for
they seem t