448 APPENDIX

the midst of the Stones of Fire is as the walking of the three Holy Children in the midst of the Furnace of Dura.¹

And all this is spoken of the great City which Venice was ordered to abuse for ever by the oracle of the Orphan Child.²

2. Will you look back to the first sentence with which I began my story of her, thirty years ago? and now follow it out to its conclusion? “Since first the dominion of men was asserted over the ocean, three thrones, of mark beyond all others, have been set upon its sands-the thrones of Tyre, Venice, and England. Of the First of these great powers only the memory remains; of the Second, the ruin; the Third, which inherits their greatness, if it forget their example, may be led through prouder eminence to less pitied destruction.”³

I ask you to read this partly that you may see how early the conception was formed by me of the present state of England, which led, only a few years after that sentence was written, to my virtually quitting my pursuit of art altogether that I might teach her-so far as she would hear-what likeness she bore to the condemned Queen of the Deep. I have now finally to fulfil the message.

3. You have heard the Blessing of Tyre; hear now her condemnation:⁴-

“Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.”

“By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God; and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.

“Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty; thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.

“Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffic: therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee; and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee.

“All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.”

I do not know if the ears of the modern public, educated by mellifluous railroad whistles, will be in any wise pleased by the tones or cadence of this piece of ancient literature, or whether the intellect of the modern public, developed by the equally mellifluous theology of Professor Clifford,⁵ and other corner-stones of recent Science, feeding on the

¹ [Daniel iii.]

² [See, again, St. Mark’s Rest, § 6 (above, p. 212).]

³ [See Vol. IX. p. 17.]

⁴ [Ezekiel xxviii. 15-19.]

⁵ [For another reference to Professor W. K. Clifford, see Fors Clavigera, Letter 65, § 9.]

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