Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 354, April 1845Various
General
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 354, April 1845
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
But we really were surprised, after our long familiarity with "the holy
illustrious guiding one of the sea"--"the mighty lord of the waters"--"the
swift champion of the moon," and the other moonstruck pseudo deities of
the Eugubian tables, to find the chief place and honour in the island of
their own discovery and adoption taken from them, and bestowed on the
Indian Buddho. The "swift champion of the moon" seems to have been
sensible of the affront, and to have made his indignation perceptible in
the suggestion of an argument that can hardly have descended from any but
the lunar sphere; viz. that because the Buddhists of the east raise
monumental dagobas over the relics of their deity, and the Irish round
towers, as is alleged, (by a nameless interpolation in a nameless Irish
MS.,) have been called by a name arguing monumental purposes, that
therefore the Irish towers are dagobas, and any bones that may be found in
or about their foundations are relics of Buddho. The dagobas of Ceylon and
India are buildings of a totally different character from these towers;
they do strongly resemble the pyramidal structures of Yucatan, but bear
not the remotest likeness to any round tower either in Ireland or
elsewhere. Such facts might furnish grounds for arguing an identity
between Buddho and Quaccalcoatle, (and such an identity appears by no
means improbable;) but thence to attempt the deduction of any argument
applicable to the round towers in Ireland or Great Britain, only shows the
illogical constitution of the arguer's mind.
We have given the book and the subject more space than we intended, and
certainly much more than the former, by itself, is worth; but the subject
is one that, whether magnified into an undue importance by having been
repeatedly treated by men of note and learning or not, does, in the
present state of European literature, stand high among the loftiest marks
aimed at by human intellect; and any one singling himself from the crowd
of lookers-on, and addressing himself to hit it, makes himself, for the
moment, the observed of the whole learned world, and by his success or his
failure acquires honour, or brings down reproach upon his country. We
cannot permit British literature to be scandalized by the failure of one
from our ranks who is manifestly inadequate to the task even of handling
his piece, much less of bringing down the popinjay, without condemning the
rashness of the attempt, and exonerating ourselves from any charge of
participating in it.
SUSPIRIA DE PROFUNDIS: BEING A SEQUEL TO THE CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH
OPIUM-EATER.
PART I.--(_Continued from last Number._)
"_But you forgot her,_" says the Cynic; "_you happened one day to forget
this sister of yours?_"--Why not? To cite the beautiful words of
Wallenstein,
"What pang
Is permanent with man? From the highest
As from the vilest thing of every day
He learns to wean himself. For the strong hours
Conquer him."[11]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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