were out of chaos and death; proving the infinite power, wisdom, and
goodness, of the GREAT CAUSE OF ALL BEING!" Here we cannot trace any
co-mixture of science and scepticism, and in vain shall we look for the
spawn of infidel doctrine. The same excellent feeling breathes
throughout _Salmonia_, one of the most delightful labours of leisure we
have ever seen. Not a few of the most beautiful phenomena of Nature are
here lucidly explained, yet the pages have none of the varnish of
philosophical unbelief or finite reasoning. "In my opinion," says one of
the characters in the Dialogue, (to be identified as the author,)
"profound minds are the most likely to think lightly of the resources of
human reason; and it is the pert superficial thinker who is generally
strongest in every kind of unbelief. The deep philosopher sees changes
of causes and effects, so wonderfully and strangely linked together,
that he is usually the last person to decide upon the impossibility of
any two series of events being independent of each other; and in
science, so many natural miracles, as it were, have been brought to
light,--such as the fall of stones from meteors in the atmosphere, the
disarming a thundercloud by a metallic point, the production of fire
from ice by a metal white as silver, and referring certain laws of
motions of the sea to the moon,--that the physical inquirer is seldom
disposed to assert, confidently, on any abstruse subjects belonging to
the order of natural things, and still less so on those relating to the
more mysterious relations of moral events and intellectual natures."[7]

Many other passages in _Salmonia_ gush forth with great force and beauty,
and sometimes soar into sublime truths. Thus says the eloquent author:

"A full and clear river is, in my opinion, the most poetical object in
nature. Pliny has, as well as I recollect, compared a river to human life.
I have never read the passage in his works, but I have been a hundred