"conoscitor delle peccata," whom, therefore, you find in Dante
under the form of the [Greek: erpeton]. "Cignesi con la coda tante
volte, quantunque gradi vuol che giu sia messa."

And this peril of the influence of Daedalus is twofold; first, in leading
us to delight in glitterings and semblances of things, more than in
their form, or truth;--admire the harlequin's jacket more than the
hero's strength; and love the gilding of the missal more than its
words;--but farther, and worse, the ingenuity of Daedalus may even become
bestial, an instinct for mechanical labor only, strangely involved with
a feverish and ghastly cruelty:--(you will find this distinct in the
intensely Daedal work of the Japanese); rebellious, finally, against the
laws of nature and honor, and building labyrinths for monsters,--not
combs for bees.

208. Gentlemen, we of the rough northern race may never, perhaps, be
able to learn from the Greek his reverence for beauty; but we may at
least learn his disdain of mechanism:--of all work which he felt to be
monstrous and inhuman in its imprudent dexterities.

We hold ourselves, we English, to be good workmen. I do not think I
speak with light reference to recent calamity, (for I myself lost a
young relation, full of hope and good purpose, in the foundered ship
_London_,) when I say that either an AEginetan or Ionian shipwright built
ships that could be fought from, though they were under water; and
neither of them would have been proud of having built one that would
fill and sink helplessly if the sea washed over her deck, or turn
upside-down if a squall struck her topsail.

Believe me, gentlemen, good workmanship consists in continence and
common sense, more than in frantic expatiation of mechanical ingenuity;
and if you would be continent and rational, you had better learn more of
Art than you do now, and less of Engineering. What is taking place at
this very hour,[40] among the streets, once so bright, and avenues, once
so pleasant, of the fairest city in Europe, may surely lead us all to
feel that the skill of Daedalus, set to build impregnable fortresses, is
not so wisely applied as in framing the [Greek: treton ponon],--the
golden honeycomb.

FOOTNOTES:

[37] The closing Lecture, on the religious temper of the Florentine,
though necessary for the complete explanation of the subject to my
class, at the time, introduced new points of inquiry which I do not
choose to lay before the general reade