Poetry > Ballads in the Cumberland dialect

174
NOTES.
Note 5, p. 22.—.4 boggle’s been seen, tkc.
The fault of the present age is not that it believe,
too much, but that it believes too little. Its iLLUMlj
nati have ejected from their creeds not only the fablei
of giants, fairies, and necromancers, but the truths d
revelation and the facts of sacred history. They 'vvisi
to reform our politics, our philosophy, and our man'
ners, and yet would take away that religion to which
we are indebted for our public and domestic happiness<
Were a missionary from this new school to visit;
those sequestered parts of Cumberland, where the
superstitions of our ancestors are preserved in all
their purity, what stubborn tenets would he have to
contend with ! What shades of mental darkness would1,
his philosophy have to penetrate ! In almost every
cottage he would see the Bible, and the histories of
giants, fairies, witches, and apparitions, occupying!
the same shelf, and equally sharing the belief and
engaging the attention of their rustic readers. The!
effects, indeed, of these sacred and fabulous records
are different: the one shedding over the mind a
pleasing serenity; the other, a sombre melancholy.
In the days of antiquity, the houses, woods, and |
rivers of Greece and Rome were frequented by Lares, ,
Fauns, Dryads, and Naiads—all of them cheerful in
their nature, and friendlyto man. The Graces and
the Loves sported on their plains, and on their moun¬
tains the Muses strung their harps. But the Genii
that haunt the romantic valleys, the hills, woods, and
rivers of Cumberland, are so mischievous and male¬
volent in their disposition, so terrific in their aspect,
and hostile to the human race, that a person would |
be thought very regardless of his safety, were he to
entrust himself at any late honr of the night in the
neighbourhood of their haunts. Though of an aerial
nature, these beings often assume, during their noc¬
turnal rambles on our earth, a corporeal form, that
the gross optic nerves of poor mortals might be able