of an old state of things, now on the point of passing away.
Such periods, the lull before the burst of the hurricane, the
almost oppressive stillness which announces the eruption, or,
to use Campbell's beautiful image--

'The torrent's smoothness ere it dash below,'--

are always, I think, full of a very deep interest. But it is
not from the mere force of contrast with the times that follow,
nor yet from the solemnity which all things wear when their
dissolution is fast approaching--the interest has yet another
source; our knowledge, namely, that in that tranquil period lay
the germs of the great changes following, taking their shape
for good or for evil, and sometimes irreversibly, while all
wore an outside of unconsciousness. We, enlightened by
experience, are impatient of this deadly slumber; we wish in
vain that the age could have been awakened to a sense of its
condition, and taught the infinite preciousness of the passing
hour. And as, when a man has been cut off by sudden death, we
are curious to know whether his previous words or behaviour
indicated any sense of his coming fate, so we examine the
records of a state of things just expiring, anxious to observe
whether, in any point, there may be discerned an anticipation
of the great future, or whether all was blindness and
insensibility. In this respect, Comines' Memoirs are striking
from their perfect unconsciousness: the knell of the middle
ages had been already sounded, yet Comines has no other notions
than such as they had tended to foster; he describes their
events, their characters, their relations, as if they were to
continue for centuries. His remarks are such as the simplest