1 Napoleon was crowned with the Iron Crown (so called from the iron circle inside, said to be made out of a nail of the Cross) in 1805, a thousand years after it had encircled the head of the Emperor Charlemagne. 2 The conqueror of the Western world had the mortification of perceiving, during his lifetime, in rapid action, the decay destined so soon to prostrate his empire. Instantly on his death, as if by enchantment, the fabric fell to pieces. Separated into detached dominions, all means of mutual support were lost: and pusillanimous millions yielded, almost without a struggle, to the ravages of a few thousand hardy and rapacious enemies! -ALISON, Hist. of Europe, chap. 1. 3 See the Preface to the first edition, p. i. 4 The philosophic German, Herder, speaks of Alfred as a pattern for kings in the time of extremity; a bright star in the history of mankind; a greater man than Charlemague. Mirabeau draws a noble parallel between Charlemagne and Alfred, giving the palm to the Anglo-Saxon; and Voltaire declared that he knew of no one worthier than Alfred, of the veneration of posterity. 5 This extraordinary incident in the life of Alfred, his embassy to India, to the shrine O pious King! Strains uttered on the earth! The citizens of Earth, Inhabitants of the ground, All had one like beginning: They of two only, All came: Men and women, within the world: All alike come into the world : The Father and the Creator. In the course of thy might. Thou that overseest all, Now they here in many Together glided these great Royal Ones, of St Thomas, who was believed to have died there, seems established beyond a doubt. See TURNER'S Hist. of the Anglo-Saxons, Book V., chap. 6. 6 This is taken verbatim from the extant poem given at length in TURNFR'S History of the Anglo-Saxons, vol. ii. pp. 104, 118. New forms of power, and seats of government! Mighty schemes of Empire, proudly conceived, Long blood-cemented, All! all! like bubbles burst! But Alfred also mused upon his own dear sceptred isle ! His little realm! Little once, not now: so GREAT become ! Grown like a grain of mustard-seed: When sown, less than all seeds on earth, But grown, and waxed a great tree, and shooting out great branches! Yes, venerable shade! Majestic gliding o'er the spot, In this our happy day, As in thy time thou wast, of Him, Her Heavenly Father, High and Mighty, King of kings, Lord of lords! Only Ruler of Princes, From His throne beholding all the solved! dwellers on the earth! Beside great Alexander, lo, standing, 2 That wonderful man, Roger Bacon, who suddenly blazed a star of the first magnitude, in the profound darkness of the Middle Ages, declared that, if he could, he would have burnt the whole books of Aristotle, Quia eorum studium non est nisi temporis amissio, et causa erroris, et multiplicatio ignorantiæ. He The Macedonian melted into air who said this was, nevertheless, a staunch again! 1 His voluminous works, on every department of human knowledge existing in his time, have nearly all perished. Pliny states that ARISTOTLE's History of Animals, of which ten books survive, extended to fifty volumes! believer in the Philosopher's Stone, the Elixir of Life, and Astrology. 3 Lord Bacon. 4 These words indicate points of the Aristotelian philosophy. 5 Paradise Lost, Book II., 988. Milton styles the ruler of the realm of chaos, or confusion, 'the Anarch old.' The PAST, written deep in earth, sowed telling Races of life, successive, Forms, seeming uncouth, tremendous, Their offices performed, all passed Ten thousand thousand thousand ages hence! Predicting dim eclipse, disastrous shadow sheddingNight in mid-day! Ay, o'er this Palace' site, Then, perchance 'neath ocean deeply whelmed! And forms existent, active, now, 1 To what may we not look forward, said Herschel, more than twenty years ago, when a spirit of scientific inquiry shall have spread through those vast regions in which the process of civilisation, its sure precursor, is actually commenced, and in active progress? What may we not expect from the exertions of powerful minds called into action under circumstances totally different from any which have yet existed in the world, and over an extent of territory far surpassing that which has hitherto produced the whole harvest of human intellect? 2 i. e. The philosophers who have succeeded Lord Bacon, whether dead, or living. 8 The vast, and the minute, -revealed by the telescope and microscope.-Ante, pp. 16, 17. 4 Aristotle and Lord Bacon are represented as being informed of the wonderful revelations of geology. Now two thousand years ago: Noiseless motion all around! Thinking of the Tomb, he sought, 5 Up to the present time, no remains of man have been discovered, (Ante, p. 23): it is conceived in the text, that it may be otherwise hereafter. this august prince of philosophers: First, I 6 Thus sublimely commenced the will of bequeath my soul and body into the hands of God, by the blessed oblation of my Saviour -the one at the time of my dissolution, the other at my resurrection. For my name and memory, I leave it to men's charitable speeches, and to foreign nations, and the next ages.' One of these expressions points to a passage in his life pregnant with instruction, telling of the fallen nature of man, in his highest present condition. 7 The NOVUM ORGANUM, or new method of extending knowledge by means of Induction: whence Lord Bacon has acquired the title of the Father of Experimental Philosophy. The Crystal Palace teemed with trophies of the inductive system. 8 Archimedes is here represented as contemplating the machinery in noiseless motion, at midnight, as it had been in noisy action during the day :-as it were, a human shadow, watching mechanical shadows, in motion. 9 Give me, said he, a place where I may stand, outside the earth, and I will move it. Chaldean and Egyptian sage, And Greek Philosopher,1 Gazing on that Orrery, And with a heart to Heaven dis loyal, O, tell it not Yet hear! He had ABJURED the glorious TRUTH, Itself had taught! And falsely swore The earth stood still, and round it rolled the Sun! -Beside him see PYTHAGORAS ! And he, two thousand years be fore, Had his Disciples taught, Looked each upon the other! 2 A monk preached against Galileo from the words, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into Heaven?-Acts, i. 11. See Note, No. XV.-'Galileo among the Cardinals.' 3 The ancient philosophers had two modes of teaching, the one called esoteric (erWOEY), the other exoteric (swosv), i.e. secret, and open: the former were the more perfect and sublime of their doctrines, intrusted to disciples and adepts alone; the latter, such popular doctrines as might suffice for the vulgar. That LIGHT Could LIGHT extinguish, Approach COPERNICUS, DES CARTES! Unhappy GALILEO! -Yes, once again, repentant one! In dark night, shining Stars, Nay, all at once, the Heavens illumining ! 4 New constellation! Showing moons, and suns, and stars, Infinitely far away: Crimson, blue, and purple suns! 5 With Christian, Pagan mingling! Know, ye ancient Ones, that these Stand higher than the ground ye stood upon, Seeing by purer, brighter light, rayed, As though from walking mid the Stars! 4 These great men, together with Bacon, Locke, and Newton, appeared within a century and a half of each other. It seemed, says Herschel, as if Nature itself seconded the impulse given to Science; and, while supplying new and extraordinary aids to those senses hereafter to be exercised in her investigation,-as if to call attention to her wonders, and signalise the epoch,-she displayed the rarest, the most splendid and mysterious, of all astronomical phenomena: -the appearance, and subsequent total extinction, of a new and brilliant fixed star, twice within the lifetime of Galileo himself! 5 Ante, p. 14. 6 lbid. p. 27. |