"Morning on night, and night on morning rise,
Whilst still no land to greet the wanderer spreads
Its shadowy mountains on the sun-bright sea."
These agreeable resting places will of course supercede the necessity of ships, and destroy all the dangers of navigation. The Venetian gondola, to harmonious music, over the ever-placid wave, and with ever-favouring breezes, will serve all the purposes of marine intercourse; and remove the necessity of those perilous adventures in which our enterprising sailors are now embarked in the frozen regions of the north. Nay, he boldly tells us "all things are to be re-created." No storms are to deface the beauties of nature, and no excess of evil passion is to disturb the happiness of man!
What influence on this re-creation, by any possibility, can have the conduct of man? The apparent object of the poem, is to point out the baneful effects of superstition, vice, tyranny, and falsehood; to attribute the countless ills that curse humanity, to the bad passions, the mistaken self-interests, and the ignorance of men:—to call them, by the precepts of reason and virtue, to a proper sense of their own dignity; and to a consideration of the means of happiness which they have neglected.
