I do love these ancient ruins. We never tread upon them but we set Our foot upon some reverend history.

That friend a great man's ruin strongly checks, who rails into his belief all his defects.

For such a numerous host Fled not in silence through the frighted deep With ruin upon ruin, rout on rout, Confusion worse confounded.

Should the whole frame of nature round him break In ruin and confusion hurled, He, unconcerned, would hear the mighty crack, And stand secure amidst a falling world.

When I have been indulging this thought I have, in imagination, seen the Britons of some future century, walking by the banks of the Thames, then overgrown with weeds and almost impassable with rubbish. The father points to his son where stood St. Paul's, the Monument, the Bank, the Mansion House, and other places of the first distinction.

For, to make deserts, God, who rules mankind, Begins with kings, and ends the work by wind.