element of hearsaying and canting, of twaddle and poltroonery, in
which the bewildered Earth, nigh perishing, has _lost its way._
Hear once more, ye bewildered benighted mortals; listen once
again to a voice from the inner Light-sea and Flame-sea, Nature's
and Truth's own heart; know the Fact of your Existence what it
is, put away the Cant of it which it is not; and knowing, do,
and let it be well with you!--

George the Third is Defender of something we call 'the Faith' in
those years; George the Third is head charioteer of the
Destinies of England, to guide them through the gulf of French
Revolutions, American Independences; and Robert Burns is Gauger
of ale in Dumfries. It is an Iliad in a nutshell. The
physiognomy of a world now verging towards dissolution, reduced
now to spasms and death-throes, lies pictured in that one fact,--
which astonishes nobody, except at me for being astonished at it.
The fruit of long ages of confirmed Valethood, entirely confirmed
as into a Law of Nature; cloth-worship and quack-worship:
entirely _confirmed_ Valethood,--which will have to unconfirm
itself again; God knows, with difficulty enough!--

Abbot Samson had found a Convent all in dilapidation; rain
beating through it, material rain and metaphorical, from all
quarters of the compass. Willelmus Sacrista sits drinking
nightly, and doing mere _tacenda._ Our larders are reduced to
leanness, Jew Harpies and unclean creatures our purveyors; in
our basket is no bread. Old women with their distaffs rush out
on a distressed Cellarer in shrill Chartism. 'You cannot stir
abroad but Jews and Christians pounce upon you with unsettled
bonds;' debts boundless seemingly as the National Debt of