; and Euroclydon high
on Helle's wave; meantime, let our happy piety glorify the garden rocks
with snowdrop circlet, and breathe the spirit of Paradise, where life is
wise and innocent.

Maps many have we, now-a-days clear in display of earth constituent, air
current, and ocean tide. Shall we ever engrave the map of meaner
research, whose shadings shall content themselves in the task of showing
the depth, or drought,--the calm, or trouble, of Human Compassion?

For this is indeed all that is noble in the life of Man, and the source
of all that is noble in the speech of Man. Had it narrowed itself then,
in those days, out of all the world, into this peninsula between
Cockermouth and Shap?

Not altogether so; but indeed the _Vocal_ piety seemed conclusively to
have retired (or excursed?) into that mossy hermitage, above Little
Langdale. The _Un_vocal piety, with the uncomplaining sorrow, of Man,
may have had a somewhat wider range, for aught we know: but history
disregards those items; and of firmly proclaimed and sweetly canorous
religion, there really seemed at that juncture none to be reckoned upon,
east of Ingleborough, or north of Criffel. Only under Furness Fells, or
by Bolton Priory, it seems we can still write Ecclesiastical Sonnets,
stanzas on the force of Prayer, Odes to Duty, and complimentary
addresses to the Deity upon His endurance for adoration. Far otherwise,
over yonder, by Spezzia Bay, and Ravenna Pineta, and in ravines of
Hartz. There, the softest voices speak the wildest words; and Keats
discourses of Endymion, Shelley of Demogorgon, Goethe of Lucifer, and
Buerger of the Resurrection of Death unto Death--while even Puritan
Scotland and Episcopal Anglia produce for us only these three minstrels
of doubtful tone, who show but small respect for the 'unco guid,' put
but limited faith in gifted Gilfillan, and translate with unflinching
frankness the _Morgante Maggiore_.[184]

Dismal the aspect of the spiritual world, or at least the sound of it,
might well seem to the eyes and ears of Saints (such as we had) of the
period--dismal in angels' eyes also assuredly! Yet is it possible that
the dismalness in angelic sight may be otherwise quartered, as it were,
from the way of mortal heraldry; and that seen, and heard, of
angels,--again I say--hesitatingly--_is_ it possible that the goodness
of the Unco Guid, and the gift of Gilfillan, and the word of Mr.
Blattergowl, may severally not have been the goodness