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the ruins of the Pyraeus, or the deserted streets of Pompeii. We find it
impossible to behold unmoved the sad, the astonishing changes which time,
the arch-destroyer has effected with his giant arm. Our exuberant fancies
carry us back to those remote periods when all was glory and magnificence,
where now ruin and desolation have established their melancholy empire.
Abandoning ourselves to the potent influence of classical contemplations of
the past, we revel in the full indulgence of antiquarian enthusiasm.
Imagination, however, needs not in general so wide a field for the exercise
of her magic powers. We desire perhaps more of pleasurable excitement from
the recollections attached to spots identified in our minds with events of
individual or ideal interest, than from the loftier train of thoughts
produced by a pilgrimage to countries which have become famous in ancient
or modern story. Thus we experience more delight in visiting places,
remarkable as having once been the resort or habitations of distinguished
men, than in viewing the ruins of an ancient citadel, or the site of a
celebrated battle. The events achieved on the latter may indeed, in their
time, have turned the scale of empires; but the association of ideas in the
former instances, speak a thousand times more feeling to our individual
sympathies. I remember when passing a couple of days in the opulent city of
Rotterdam, that after walking all the morning along its crowded streets,
and paying the accustomed stranger's tribute of admiration to its quays,
its port, and its commercial magnificence, I at length halted before the
statue of Erasmus. It stands on a pedestal in the middle of a large market,
and represents the celebrated scholar, clothed in his professor's gown, and
seemingly gazing with dignified unconcern at the busy multitude around. I
remained looking at the effigy before me, with a reverential feeling akin
to that of the devotee at the shrine of a patron saint. Imagination
transported me back to the eventful times in which Erasmus flourished,
opening to my mind's eye a long vista of historical recollections, till my
absorbed demeanour attracted observation. I found myself exposed to that
vacant stare with which people are so apt to disconcert your composure, if
they observe you contemplating with curiosity and interest, objects which
they have seen every day of their lives, and for that very reason always
pass unnoticed. Leaving then my positio