ETHEL CHURCHILL.
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some diviner prompting: the best efforts of humanity belong to enthusiasm; but Sir Robert's was not the age of enthusiasm. The revolution, and the exile of the Stuarts, seemed to have exhausted that ardour, and that poetry, which are essentially the characteristics of English history: the chivalric, the picturesque, and the romantic, were put aside for a time to awaken into the higher hope, and more general enthusiasm, of the present. The best proof of their exalting presence among us is, that we believe and hope, where our grandfathers ridiculed and doubted. But we are keeping the fair petitioners waiting; a fault Sir Robert himself would not have committed.
