by the foot of native Criffel, into blue mountainous Cumberland, into blue Infinitude; environed with thrift, with humble friendliness; thyself, young fool, longing to be aloft from it, or even to be away from it.  Yes, beyond that sapphire Promontory, which men name St. Bees, which is not sapphire either, but dull sandstone, when one gets close to it, there is a world.  Which world thou too shalt taste of!—­From yonder White Haven rise his smoke-clouds; ominous though ineffectual.  Proud Forth quakes at his bellying sails; had not the wind suddenly shifted.  Flamborough reapers, homegoing, pause on the hill-side:  for what sulphur-cloud is that that defaces the sleek sea; sulphur-cloud spitting streaks of fire?  A sea cockfight it is, and of the hottest; where British Serapis and French-American Bon Homme Richard do lash and throttle each other, in their fashion; and lo the desperate valour has suffocated the deliberate, and Paul Jones too is of the Kings of the Sea!

The Euxine, the Meotian waters felt thee next, and long-skirted Turks, O Paul; and thy fiery soul has wasted itself in thousand contradictions;—­to no purpose.  For, in far lands, with scarlet Nassau-Siegens, with sinful Imperial Catherines, is not the heart-broken, even as at home with the mean?  Poor Paul! hunger and dispiritment track thy sinking footsteps:  once or at most twice, in this Revolution-tumult the figure of thee emerges; mute, ghost-like, as ’with stars dim-twinkling through.’  And then, when the light is gone quite out, a National Legislature grants ‘ceremonial funeral!’ As good had been the natural Presbyterian Kirk-bell, and six feet of Scottish earth, among the dust of thy loved ones.—­Such world lay beyond the Promontory of St. Bees.  Such is the life of sinful mankind here below.

But of all strangers, far the notablest for us is Baron Jean Baptiste de Clootz;—­or, dropping baptisms and feudalisms, World-Citizen Anacharsis Clootz, from Cleves.  Him mark, judicious Reader.  Thou hast known his Uncle, sharp-sighted thorough-going Cornelius de Pauw, who mercilessly cuts down cherished illusions; and of the finest antique Spartans, will make mere modern cutthroat Mainots. (De Pauw, Recherches sur les Grecs, &c.) The like stuff is in Anacharsis:  hot metal; full of scoriae, which should and could have been smelted out, but which will not.  He has wandered over this terraqueous Planet; seeking, one may say, the Paradise we lost long ago.  He has seen English Burke; has been seen of the Portugal Inquisition; has roamed, and fought, and written; is writing, among other things, ‘Evidences of the Mahometan Religion.’  But now, like his Scythian adoptive godfather, he finds himself in the Paris Athens; surely, at last, the haven of his soul.  A dashing man, beloved at Patriotic dinner-tables; with gaiety, nay with humour; headlong, trenchant, of free purse; in suitable costume; though what mortal ever more despised costumes?  Under all costumes Anacharsis seeks the man; not Stylites Marat will more freely trample costumes, if they hold no man.  This is the faith of Anacharsis:  That there is a Paradise discoverable; that all costumes ought to hold men.  O Anacharsis, it is a headlong, swift-going faith.  Mounted thereon, meseems, thou art bound hastily for the City of Nowhere; and wilt arrive!  At best, we may say, arrive in good riding attitude; which indeed is something.