Selections from Irving's Sketch-Book (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SELECTIONS FOR READING. THE VOYAGE. "Ships, ships, I will descrie you Amidst the main, I will come and try you, What you are protecting, And projecting, What's your end and aim. One goes abroad for merchandise and trading, Another stays to keep his country from invading, A third is coming home with rich anJ wealthy lading, Hallo / my fancie, whither wilt thou g: ? " Old Poem. TO an American visiting Europe,, the long voyage he has to make is an excellent preparative. The temporary absence of worldly scenes and employments produces a state of mind peculiarly fitted to receive new and vivid impressions. The vast space of waters that separates the hemispheres is like a blank 1 The Church of St. Peter in Rome is built upon the site of the religious edifice erected in the time of Constantine (306), and consecrated as the " Basilica of St. Peter." 2 A vast amphitheater in Rome, begun by the Emperor Vespasian, A.D. 72, and dedicated A.D. 80. For nearly five hundred years it was the popular resort of Rome. In the year 555 the whole of the city was overflowed by the Tiber, and the lower part of the Colosseum was then destroyed. 3 A town of Italy in the province of Perugia, noted for the Falls of Velino, which, for volume and beauty, take a very high place among European waterfalls. 4 No other place in the world combines within the same compass so much natural beauty with so many objects of interest to the antiquary, the historian, and the geologist, as the Bay of Naples. page in existence. There is no gradual transition, by which, as in Europe, the features and population of one country blend almost imperceptibly with those of another. From the moment you lose sight of the land you have left, all is vacancy until you step on the opposite shore, and are la...