and seven tons of stone were deposited. In
1817, a storm displaced two hundred yards of
the upper stone-work; but this only strengthened
the work, and showed the "angle of
repose" at which the stones could safely lie.
Rennie died in 1821, and his son and three other
engineers completed this noble work. Sir John
Rennie, finding the roll of the sea dangerous at
the westward end of the Breakwater, built a
platform of rubble to "trip up" the heavy seas
before they could reach the slope. In 1838, a
severe storm carried blocks of twelve and
fourteen tons from the sea to the land slope. The
western arm was completed in 1840. The
stone used has been computed, in the total,
at three million tons; the total cost at one
million five hundred thousand pounds. The
Digue, at Cherbourg, is, however, four
thousand one hundred and eleven feet long and
ninety feet broad; the Breakwater at Plymouth
only one thousand seven hundred and sixty feet
long and one hundred and twenty feet broad at
the base.

And now rising and soaring far over the
proud woods of Mount Edgecumbe, which
the admiral of the Armada is said to have
selected for his prize when the Spaniards
should divide England, the crow drifts on
across the wild Cornish moors to Bodmin, en
route for the Cornish coast and the haunted
cliffs around Tintagel.

THE VINDICATION OF PROSE.

MODERN readers of our recent high-flown poets
are too apt to despise honest every-day Prose,
as an inferior form of composition. By such
persons, we apprehend, the nature, origin, and
importance of prose, as a vehicle of thought,
have not been duly considered, nor its genius
properly estimated. Poetry, we concede, is older
than history, and verse than prose. The former,
moreover, as if by right of primogeniture, have
taken the highest rank in general regard. Is
it not, however, doubtful whether their claim
to such superiority can be maintained? A late
eminent poet wrote a very brief but significant
essay, on The Wonderfulness of Prose. As
an instrument in the hands of a skilful worker,
indeed, the utility of prose appears to have no
limits; it is available for all subjects, the
loftiest as well as the lowliest. It can
accommodate itself to either. It has an endless
capacity of adaptation. It can vary its rhythm
at pleasure, now swelling into sublime
eloquence, now condescending to the plainest
narrative. It is never monotonous, because
always free to suit its cadence to its theme, and
to alter the measure with the mental mood;
it imposes no form on the thought, but permits
the natural expression to every rising emotion.

Now, verse for the most part does the
contrary of all this. The metricist dances in
fetters, and stands on ceremony and punctilio.
Nor is he content to speak the truth in a
straightforward manner, but wraps it in fable,
and conceals it in myths. The Oriental type of
mind is that which best illustrates this, and
most aptly transmits to us the pre-historical in
its most appropriate—its poetic form. In this
there is a want of distinction between the
inward feeling and the outward figure; and
positive laws are readily accepted for, and instead
of, the moral sentiments. Consciousness has
not yet made any difference between the inward
and outward, and language is left to the mercy
of metaphors and allegories, which are not yet
submitted to any control but that of grammar;
which, with some other studies, such as
astronomy, geometry, and algebra, receive early
attention. Life and speech with a pre-historic
people are ruled by the imagination,
unassociated yet with understanding, the
objects of which from their first apprehension are
perverted by the fancy. Such a people lived
in a state of reverie, and revelled in sensuous
perceptions and expressions, which were
traditionally accepted as identified with truth,
and never brought to the bar of conscience or
the test of reason. Accordingly, in conversation
with Eastern people, we seldom get a
veracious answer or any direct information;
what appears to the European mind as falsehood
pervades every sentence, even to the form of
the words, owing to the mind being in a false
state: but the seeming falsehood, though it
may have the effect of a direct lie, is really a
fiction only, prompted by the excitement which
a habit of poetic expression continually
maintains and indeed requires. Such is the case
with the Hindoos to the present day.

Myths, for the most part, have as little place
in prose as they ought to have in history. It
states things as they actually happen, and not
as they may be made to appear by a symbolical
interpretation, based on arbitrary suppositions.
We meet with this literal dealing with facts
first of all in Chinese history. The Chinese
writers of history form a distinct series, and
commence with a high antiquity, some three
thousand years before the Christian era. Their
earliest books contain ancient canonical
documents, and are called Kings, consisting of the
Shu-King, the Y-King, and the Shi-king. The
first of these comprises their history, treats
of the government of the former monarchs,
and gives the statutes enacted by them; the
second consists of figures, which have served
as the bases of the Chinese written character;
and the third preserves a collection of the
oldest poems, written in a great variety of
styles. These, with two others of less importance,
the Li-king and the Tshun-tsin, form the
groundwork of the history, the manners, and
the laws of China. The Chinese historical
works are executed with the strictest accuracy;
the historians belong to the highest
functionaries. Two ministers, constantly in
attendance on the emperor, keep a journal of
everything the latter does, commands, and
says, and their notes are then worked up and
made use of by the historians.

The earliest of these histories, however, could
not avoid the mythical element, and represents
the human race as originally savages, living in