Literary Recollections. By the Rev. Richard Warner, F.A.S. &c. Two vols. 8vo. THIS is a large book made out of small materials. But the Rev. Richard Warner being of a communicative disposition, no doubt thought it his duty to put into print many things which may have interested himself, but which, we fear, will interest no one else. The truth is, that Mr Warner's "Literary Recollections" are necessarily of a limited nature, for he has not, in the whole course of his life, known many literary people, at least people of such eminence as to make their sayings and doings worthy of being recorded. Some of our readers may perhaps ask-"Who is the Rev. Richard Warner?" We can only answer, that he is the Rector of Great Chalfield, Wilts, that he is a member of the Dutch Society of Sciences at Haerlem,-and that he is the author of the "Companion in a Tour round Lymington," of the "Southampton Guide," of an "Abridged Civil and Natural History of the Isle of Wight," of "Hampshire extracted from Doomsday Book," of " Netley Abbey, a Gothic Story," and of several other works of a similar kind. Mr Warner is therefore a very eminent man, and was well entitled to write his own Memoirs. But, moreover, he was acquainted with Dr Parr, and this seems to have been his great inducement to take up the pen. He knew a good number of other persons of less notoriety, and has, in the volumes before us, made "A fond attempt to give a deathless lot but Dr Parr was the sun round which he and the other extract: RECOLLECTIONS OF DR PARR. rubber of penny whist; at which he either was, or believed himself to be, a great proficient. In the evening, therefore, the card-table was prepared. Fortune decreed that he should have me for a partner. For a time, I presume, I committed no heinous breach of the laws of Hoyle; as the business of the board of green cloth went on regularly and satisfactorily. Ambitious, however, to impress my partner with an idea of my consummate knowledge of the game, I made a finesse. It failed, and we lost the rubber. The Doctor, knitting his mighty brows, inflicted upon me one of his Gorgon looks; and most caustically exclaimed'Dick, you have all the cunning of a Bath sharper, without his skill.' Happily for my re-instatement in his favour, his next hand of cards was a brilliant one. The features of his disturbed physiognomy assumed their natural arrangement; and in a tone of conciliation he mildly said: I acquit you of trickery, Richard: would that I could of stupidity;-however, I believe your intention was good, and that's no mean praise.'”—Vol. ii. p. 186–8. Whilst it will be obvious from what we have already said, that we have no great idea of the comprehensiveness of Mr Warner's intellect, it is but fair to add, that he appears to be an amiable and conscientious man, who would not set down aught in malice,” and if he does no good, will at least do no harm. The Barony. By Miss Anna Maria Porter. 3 vols. London. Longman, Rees, Orme, and Co. 1830. CHANGED as all things are in the novel-reading world since Miss Porter first began to write, there is, nevertheless, a numerous class who will hail with pleasure a new work of fiction from her pen. We are glad to be able to say that they will not be disappointed in "The Barony." It is an interesting and well-told story, and, in our opinion, possesses additional attractions, from being connected with a part of the national history of Great Britain. The tale opens in 1685, and in its progress the scene changes from Wales to the Court of James II., introducing us to the principal personages of the time. The history of Monmouth's rebellion forms a prominent feature tholics and Protestants is fully developed, and skilfully of the novel, and the enmity existing between the Camade use of, to heighten the effect of the general picture. We should have been glad to have entered into a fuller account of this work, but as our space to-day forbids, we prefer noticing it briefly, rather than passing it over altogether. We can assure our readers that they will find "The Barony" worthy of the reputation of Miss Porter. Letters from Nova Scotia; comprising Sketches of a Young "Many were the days of social delight which I passed in the company of Dr Parr, whilst he continued in Bath; but one, in particular, remains traced on my memory, in the brightest colours. He had promised to dine at my cottage. I was aware of his partiality for the society of men younger than himself; and a few friends, far inferior to the Doctor in years, but quite qualified to be his companions, gave him the meeting. All was sunshine. Every thing chanced to please him. The dishes were to his heart's content. The wine (of which, however, he always drank but little) was old and highly flavoured; and I had provided a large stock of common shag tobacco, which he always chose rather than the We have great objections to a sensible and intelligent most genuine 'cnaster. He had, too, what he preferred to man (and Captain Moorsom is evidently both) throwing all besides, the attention, admiration, and honest opentogether the whole of his observations, made during a hearted converse, of sensible young men. I never saw him before or afterwards in such gallant spirits. Every puff of long sojourn in an interesting territory, into the form of his pipe was a prelude to a pointed joke, an apt quotation, letters to his friends. In the first place, because the form or a capital story. One of the latter he dwelt upon with of a letter is the worst possible for conveying solid ingreat delight, and related with the most minute particular-struction; in the second place, because there is a degree ity. Its burden was a bull-baiting, for which practice he candidly confessed he had ever a secret, but unconquerable predilection. You see,' said he, pulling up his loose coatsleeve above his elbow, and exposing his vast, muscular, and hirsute arm to the gaze of the company- You see that I am a kind of taurine man, and must, therefore, be naturally addicted to the sport.' The baiting had occurred at Cambridge, during one of his latter visits to the University. His anxiety to witness it was uncontrollable; but, as his personal appearance on the arena could not be thought of, he hired a garret near the place of exhibition, disrobed himself of his academical dress, put a nightcap on his head, in the lieu of his notorious wig; and thus disguised, enjoyed, from the elevated window, his favourite amusement, in secrecy and solitude. "I was well aware the Doctor had great pleasure in a of childishness and want of originality in the notion of inscribing each chapter with the name of a fictitious correspondent, (as appears to be the case in the present instance,) conjured up to take an interest in the subject of which it treats; and, in the third place, because such a procedure gives a book the air of a work of fiction. The only countervailing advantage offered by the epistolary style is, that it affords scope for much elegant and playful matter, which could not, perhaps, be fitly introduced in any other way; but Captain Moorsom, though a sagacious and clear-headed man, is, God wot, far from being either witty or vivacious. There is, however, much really valuable matter in this little work, and it deserves well to be read, as adding ma terially to our knowledge of our North American possessions. It contains full, and apparently accurate, notices of the state of society, the mercantile, agricultural, and manufacturing resources, and the legislative, religious, and educational institutions of the province of Nova Scotia. The author's reflections evince a mind well cultivated, and raised above the prejudices with which many of our countrymen mingle among foreigners. He knows likewise to make allowance for circumstances, and does not, like some others, rail at a new country because it wants the compactness and finish of an old one. A map, and two or three clever sketches, are given as illustrations to the work. carry on, secretly and unobservedly, his purposes of grace in a tumultuous world. We have glanced over Mr Neale's book with much satisfaction. He is a sincere, devout, and impressive writer, and conscientiously determined to be active and useful in his arduous profession. Perkin Warbeck; or, The Court of James the Fourth of THE literature of Leadenhall Street has of late years fallen into sad disrepute ; yet may it boast, with no small pride, of having once possessed a Mary Ann Radcliffe, a Le Musée Français. Recueil de 343 Planches d'apres les Charlotte Smith, and a Francis Lathom. But the "inplus beaux Tableaux et les plus belles Statues qui ex-gens gloria Teucrorum" is past; and, to parody the words istaient au Louvre, avant 1815. Paris, Publié par A. et W. Galignani. Londres, Publié par Joseph Ogle Robinson. of Moore, the occasional romance falling still-born from the press, is now the only proof that still it lives. We do not go the length of saying that our countryman Mr Alexander Campbell is destined to revive its happier days, It is not yet a year since we announced the intended but certainly his "Perkin Warbeck," had it come from publication of this work, and the whole of the numbers New Burlington instead of Leadenhall Street, would not are already upon our table. This is business-like, and as it should be. It is, moreover, a much more sensible fa- have disgraced the aspiring publishers of that more classical region. He has written a lively story, illustrative of shion of replacing to the French public the loss it sustainScottish life and manners some four centuries ago; and ed by the dismantling of the Louvre, than indulging, like if he has not a mind of a very comprehensive cast, or a the writers in their most popular periodicals, in declama-pencil capable of sketching the bolder outlines of charaction about the injustice of the robbery, when every body knows it was but a vindication on the part of the nations of their plundered rights—an action dictated alike by regard to the interests of art as of justice. ter, he is not without some quickness of perception, and a reasonable supply of native humour. We have read many worse books than "Perkin Warbeck," and could mention several writers of historical romances a good deal inferior to Alexander Campbell. London. L. B. Seeley and Son; and R. B. Seeley and Burnside. April 1830. The Dying Franciscan. A Tale founded on facts. London. R. B. Seeley and Burnside. 1830. 12mo. Pp. 91. SINFUL men that we are! we confess we had not read The present work, being in truth merely a reprint of the splendid one issued under Napoleon's auspices, with regard to the merits of which, artists and connoisseurs have long made up their minds, it would be coming be- The Christian Review and Clerical Magazine, No. XIV. hind the fair to enter into a lengthened critique. It is in a high degree worthy of praise and patronage. Viewing it, however, as a test of the present state of engraving in France, we would say that while we recognise in the accuracy and general neatness of the mechanical details, and the average feeling of the beauties of art indicated in the plates, the same respectable powers which the diffusion of education has spread throughout Europe, and occasionally the Christian Review till we received the fourteenth a burst of something more genial, we have to lament the Number. Judging from the specimen before us, we are absence of decided expression, and not unfrequently the now able to say that it appears to be a work of talent presence of a mistiness in the general effect the conse- and respectability. The writers may, perhaps, be consiquence, it may be, occasionally, of the plate having been dered by some as a little too zealous and fervent in the too long used, but undeniably at times of a weak, unde- doctrines they maintain; but this is a fault which leans cided, scratchy style of handling the graveur. The stato virtue's side." The Dying Franciscan" is an intetues are the least satisfactory part of the work. The engraving is fine, but the drawing uniformly bad. We will be bound to produce from the Trustees' Academy here six of the pupils who could do them decidedly better. The landscapes are in general most successful-and many of them are delightful. On the whole, the work affords as good a succedaneum for those who have it not in their power to see the originals, as any of the kind we have seen. Sermons on the Dangers and Duties of a Christian. To which are added, Remarks on the Prospects and Present State of Parties in the Church of England. By the Rev. Erskine Neale, B.A. London. Hurst, Chance, and Co. 1830. 8vo. Pp. 283. Ir we review all the books of sermons which are published in Scotland-and we make it a rule to do so-we are afraid we must leave the great majority of those which come out in the sister kingdom to shift for themselves. We are, nevertheless, always glad to see or hear of any new and respectable volume of sermons; for, as in the Jewish Temple there was "no sound of hammer, axe, or of any tool of iron heard in the house while it was in building," so does God, in the same mysterious silence, resting and well-told tale of a religious character, extracted from the present Number of the Christian Review, and published separately in a neat shape. MISCELLANEOUS LITERATURE. THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY. Edinburgh, May 25, 1830. MY DEAR CORRESPONDENT,From the enclosed letter, which you will see is dated Aberdeen, and which I should have forwarded to you from that place, had a proper opportunity occurred, you will learn what I have been doing, in the way of business, since I came to Scotland. You will receive my packet by Captain Smith, who sails from Leith this afternoon, and as I have an idle half-hour upon my hands before the porter calls, I think I cannot employ it better than in giving you some account of the General Assembly of the Kirk, which always creates a temporary bustle in Edinburgh at this season of the year. From the intimate connexion which formerly subsisted between our own native country and the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, you may suppose that I willingly availed myself of the present opportunity of witnessing the proceedings of our western neighbours in their supreme ecclesiastical judicatory. By a lucky accident, I had taken my passage from Aberdeen in a steam-boat, where I had for my fellowpassengers a whole northern synod, bound for the metropolis. You will probably suppose that I felt somewhat awkward among so many grave divines, but the truth is, I was the only grave man of the party myself. My companions evidently considered themselves as men whose business it was to enjoy, to the utmost limits which discretion would permit, their short relaxation from the cares of their pastoral charge. An excellent breakfast soon furnished a happy occasion for the exercise of their social talents; and though I had often heard the Aberdonians praised for the keenness of their wit, I now discovered, for the first time, that they were, or at least deserved to be, equally famous for the keenness of their appetite. But though breakfast certainly did last an unconscionable time, it could not last for ever; and the conversation, as soon as it ceased to be a reciprocal demand for eggs, rolls, tea, toast, butter, ham, and salmon, naturally turned upon the ensuing General Assembly, and such subjects as would probably come before it for discussion. The characters of the Moderator, the principal speakers, and probable leaders, then came under review; and I now discovered, from the strong leaning which they showed toward certain principles, and the partiality which they manifested for certain individuals, that my friends were moderate a discovery which affected me with no small astonishment; but I trust they have better claims to so honourable an epithet in ecclesiastical legislation, than in the enjoyment of creature comforts. On the subject of leaders, the following conversation took place. "Will the Moderates, think ye, be satisfied with Dr Cook for their leader this year?" asked a smart young man, with rosy cheeks, and a well-brushed coat, who evidently felt the importance which he was about to assume, in sitting, for the first time, as a legislator of the church. "I fear we must," replied his aged neighbour, shrugging his shoulders, as if but half-pleased with the arrange ment. | is in London, preaching before the Marquis of Lansdowne and Sir Robert Peel, and cramming his poor laws down the capacious throats of our worthy senators-and who is there left, with the exception of Lord Moncreiff, who can either think, speak, or act, in a business-like manner ?" "Ay, but his lordship is in himself a host," observed the old gentleman whom I have already mentioned— "Lives there a chief whom Ajax ought to dread, Ajax, in all the toils of battle bred ?" Besides, lads, notoriously moderate as our whole synod is known to be, it must be admitted, between ourselves, that among the High there are as talented men as in our own party. Even in the present Assembly they have Dr Gordon,—a man who, with a little attention to the forms of business, and with less diffidence in his own powers of commanding the attention of church courts, might add a fresh wreath to the laurels which his pulpit eloquence has already secured to him. I never heard him speak in a church court but once, in the Edinburgh Presbytery, on the Catholic question; and I have seldom heard, in the Assembly or elsewhere, an abler or more interesting speech." From the general conversation which ensued, I learned that Dr Cook was to lead the Moderate party-that Mr Thomson of Dundee was to order the battle on the opposite side that, as the usual place of meeting was undergoing repairs, the Assembly would meet in the Tron Church-that, with the exception of some cases of heresy, there was to be no business of importance before the venerable House-that, accordingly, the Assembly would be a dull one-that two young lads, nephews of professors, were to preach before the Commissioner, (upon which my pot-bellied friend made some joke, which I did not very well understand, about the "popish system of nepotism,”)—that Lord Forbes was an excellent man, and, what appeared to be contemplated by my fellow-voyagers with unmingled satisfaction, that this year there was a chance of enjoying his admirable dinners with some degree of comfort, since there would be no late debates. On Thursday, I arrived in Edinburgh in time to see the Commissioner walk to church. The High Street, through which he passed, was lined with cavalry—the crowd of people was considerable-the day fine-the Commissioner's suite gay, and altogether the spectacle was rather an imposing one. I did not visit the Assembly this day, as I had business to transact with our correspondent B- ; and, besides, I was told that the first "For my own part," observed a third, with a smile, "I can see no great hardship in the case. Dr Cook is an impressive and a ready speaker; he is intimately acquainted with the laws of the church, and with the forms of church courts; and really, in the absence of Dr Inglis, and since the delicate health of our own Dr Mearns pre-week was entirely occupied with preliminary arrangevents him from assuming in the Assembly that attitude which his high talents and eminent learning would entitle him to take, I do not see that we could have a better leader." Here my young friend muttered something about half measures, indecision, pseudo-moderation, and hinted that Principal Macfarlan had a better title than Dr Cook to the confidence of the Moderate party. I grant you," returned the former speaker, "the Principal is clear-headed, sagacious, honest; but he wants the tact to perceive, or the skill to avail himself of those little accidents which often give to a debate a character materially different from what it originally possessed. Besides, his stiffness and pomposity, though they do not act much to his prejudice upon great occasions, disqualify him for managing the minor details of business and ordinary debate." "Fortunately, the wild men are much worse off for leaders this year than we are," remarked a pot-bellied little gentleman, who had at length left off coquetting with the bone of a broiled fish, which had occupied his attention long after the rest of the company had ceased all offensive operations. "That is true," replied another. "Their great men are off the field. Thomson is not a member-Chalmers ments. On Tuesday, I paid my first visit to this venerable court. Near the pulpit, a handsome throne had been erected and railed in for the Lord Commissioner, who represents the King at the sittings of this ecclesiastical judicatory. The Commissioner's box (as it is called) was crowded with fashionable ladies, and a few gentlemen in uniform, and a sprinkling of persons who go under the general name of Dandies in this country-among the latter was pointed out to me the Editor of that Literary Journal, the two first volumes of which our friend Van der Hooght has lately translated into Dutch. The Commissioner himself was absent, owing to the death of a near relation. The area of the church was set apart for the members of Assembly; the gallery was divided into two parts, one for students of divinity and preachers, the other for strangers; of course I took my place in the latter. I was much amused with the contrast presented between the church in possession and the church expectant. Among the ministers there was self-complacency, ease, and upon the whole decorum; in the appearance and conduct of the viri candidati, I could perceive curiosity, restlessness, a decided propensity to disputation and quarrelling, with a very general disposition to indulge in what is called practical jokes. I happened to be placed near the partition between the two galleries, and had the good for 1 tune to have for my next neighbour, a comely, fresh old gentleman, with a smart periwig and copper-headed cane, who appeared to be taking no small interest in the proceedings of his more fortunate brethren below. From this polite old gentleman, who, I understand, is the father of the "church expectant," I learned the name, party, and character of the more eminent members of Assembly. Indeed, I required little information on these points,— thanks to my northern friends' catalogue raisonné of the great men of either party,-except the being able to identify the principal speakers, and this my new cicerone enabled me to do. "That gentleman in the gown and bands is the Moderator, Dr Singer, a good man and an orthodox. The old fellow with the powdered head and wrinkled forehead, is Principal Macfarlan; 'gad, sir, he's the man that ought to lead the Assembly. That fat good-looking gentleman is Dr Meiklejohn, a shrewd man and a pleasant. I have dined with him. That is the Solicitor-General, the young fellow with the silver chain and eye-glass-clever fellow -I'm told he makes three thousand a-year. There is Lord Moncreiff in the Moderator's box-he is an honour to the Scottish bar and bench-his father was a minister, old Sir Harry, as worthy a man as ever lived. The venerable gentleman beside him is old Dr Lamont, who preached before the King. Ah! there is Dr Cook-'gad, he is getting fat on his professorship; I wish they would make me a professor-You see he is pulling down his waistcoat; that's a sign he is going to speak: I knew a man who used on such occasions to pull up the waistband of his breeches, and it was a good plan, for it commanded attention-Hush! Cook is going to give us a speech." For the present, however, I was disappointed; the Doctor merely rose to make some uninteresting remark about the appointment of a committee, and immediately sat down. My friend, therefore, resumed his communi cations. I-SAILED from the Thames in a merchant brig for Jamaica. I was the only passenger; and before I had been many days on board, it struck me that there was something odd both about the captain and crew. They had all very bad expressions of countenance; and when I happened to be upon deck, I frequently observed that they collected in groups, and seemed to carry on in whispers a mysterious kind of conversation, with which I could not help thinking that I was myself in some way connected. The captain, in particular, was a dark-looking man, with a very ugly meaning in his large bright eyes. He seldom spoke, except in monosyllables, and then the tones of his voice almost startled me. He and I had beds in the same cabin; but I soon discovered that he never slept. Whenever I happened to look across from my own berth towards his, I could see, by the dim light of a lamp that burned upon the table all night, his large eyes glaring full upon me, with a most unnatural kind of intelligence in them. I am not of a timid disposition, but I confess I did not feel altogether comfortable. We had favourable winds, however, and ran across the Atlantic without any thing remarkable occurring. On the evening of the twenty-fifth day, I was told that the land we saw, about fifteen miles to leeward, was that of the island of St Domingo, and that, the breeze continuing, we might expect to reach Kingston in little more than eight-and-forty hours. I retired to rest between ten and eleven, with a lighter heart than I had done for some time before; and with the prospect of so soon again meet "Yonder is Dr Gordon, with his fine bald head-a capital study for the phrenologists—od, phrenology's a queer thing after all. There's Burns of Paisley-him with the spectacles. Ah ha! yonder is Andrew Thomson himself, sitting under the gallery, and hiding his curly head behind the pillar-he is the cock of the club-capital preacher-best speaker of them all-pity he is not a mem-ing several of my oldest and best friends, I speedily found ber this year. Look at that tall old gentleman standing in the passage, that is John Inglis, the ablest man in the church. Yonder mild-looking gentleman is Henry Grey, who has the clever wife-Anglicanus, you know. The other gentleman with the gold spectacles—” The sudden pause in my cicerone's speech made me turn round my head, when I observed the old beau arranging the folds of his neckcloth with one hand, while with the other he was gracefully managing his eye-glass, which he directed toward the Commissioner's box, where a fashionable party of young ladies had newly arrived. The grin of delight which illumined my old friend's countenance, convinced me that in him the fair sex had a most devoted admirer. While he was thus engaged, wreathing his face into smiles, and adjusting the curls of his yellow wig, I endeavoured, but in vain, to call back his attention to the less inviting physiognomies which had excited my own curiosity in the body of the house, and which still remained undescribed. You might as well have tried to withdraw Narcissus from his fountain, or endeavoured to divert the attention of Actæon from Diana and her nymphs, as attempted to give the eye-glass of my enamoured companion a new direction. But luckily my attention was now arrested by a very | animated debate upon some semi-arian doctrines which have of late been making a noise in this country. The particular subject was the somewhat abstruse doctrine of the peccability of Christ's human nature, and you will find the speeches and proceedings upon the whole case faithfully reported in the Observer newspaper, which I send you. I am interrupted by the arrival of the porter myself locked in the embraces of slumber, and busily occupied in the ideal world of dreams. Hour after hour past unnoted by, and daylight was shining full into my cabin before I again opened my eyes. The sun had been long up, but was not visible. It was one of those calm grey days which, in this climate, commonly predict some change of weather. There was that stillness on board the ship which almost always accompanies a calm; for when sailors have nothing to do, they are the last people in the world who will do any thing. I did not hear a step over head, and even the steward and cabin-boys I supposed had fallen asleep; for though I called pretty lustily for my breakfast, not a soul came near me. I rose at length, and having performed my toilet with all convenient speed, I got upon deck. I was somewhat surprised at not seeing a single hand either fore or aft. The very helm was deserted. I went forward to the steerage, but it was empty, and so was every hammock it contained! My pulse began to beat more quickly; I became alarmed and uneasy. I called aloud, but no one answered me. I looked into the hold, but no living thing was to be seen; nay, what struck me as peculiarly odd, there was nothing in the hold at all, except a cask or two of fresh water, though I had been given to understand that the vessel had a full and valuable cargo on board. I went back to the cabin; neither captain nor mate was there. I opened the door of every cupboard and closet, but it was in vain. Conviction of the truth, though at first its very conception almost bewildered me, inevitably forced itself on my mind ;-I was the only human being in the ship. During the night she had been purposely abandoned by her crew, and I was left alone to the mercy of the waves. On the previous evening land had been visible at the distance of five or six leagues, but now, having drifted out of my course, it was nowhere to be discovered. I My feelings can neither be imagined nor described. was perfectly ignorant of all nautical affairs, and consequently had not the most distant idea of what ought to be done. But this was, perhaps, hardly to be regretted; for however great my skill had been, what could a single person have done in the guidance and management of so large a vessel ? Had a boat been left, I should instantly have intrusted myself to it, and, though at a venture, endeavoured to steer in some particular direction; but we had only two originally, and they had both been taken away. I could find no loose timber, of which to make a raft, for even a raft I should have considered myself safer on than where I was. There is something that the human mind cannot bear to dwell upon, in the idea that it has lost its power over inert matter, and that all its intellectual energies must succumb to the mere blind chance which governs an inanimate mass. I was alone in a great floating castle, to which seemed to be left the power of determining whither it would carry me, and what fate it would assign me. The very bulk of my prison made me the more helpless; besides, I soon discovered that it was, in the sea-phrase, water-logged, and, no doubt, abandoned under the belief that it was speedily to sink. I would have given any thing for the merest little cockboat with a single oar, for I should have been comparatively my own master on the wide ocean. As long as the daylight continued, my situation, though sufficiently solitary, was not so dismal. Light is companionable, and seems to be the natural element of the human soul. But the sun had scarcely set, ere I perceived that the waters were not long to continue unruffled. The sails, almost all of which were set, and which I found it quite impossible to take in, or even to reef, no longer hung motionless by the side of the masts, but, for some time, kept flapping incessantly like the wings of a mighty bird, and then becoming steadily filled, carried the ship along with them, I knew not where. Twilight darkened into night; the moon came out of the sea like a spectre―wan and vapoury—surrounded by a dark as semblage of murky clouds. Stronger and stronger grew the wind. The waves, as they went careering by, left in their tract a broad gleam of foam, that gave to the dark sea an unnatural whiteness. I stood at the stern, with the useless helm in my hand, and almost believed that the whole was a horrible dream, from which, if I did not speedily awake, I might never awake with reason unimpaired. The storm increased; the vessel, from the quantity of canvass she carried, was tossed like a toy from wave to wave. At length, the foremast snapt, and, with all its sails and cordage, fell overboard;—it was lost among the billows in an instant. Day returned, but the storm did not abate. The wind was for a while north-west, which blew me back nearly upon the course I had already sailed, but afterwards, shifting several points, it became nearly due north, so that I conjectured it was carrying me along the coast of South America, though that coast was nowhere visible. For several days the hurricane continued, and every moment seemed to bring along with it the promise of destruction; but though the ship was now in the most miserable condition, its planks still held together, and I still continued to exist. Day after day, week after week, and, were I to judge by my own feelings, I should say year after year, passed on, and I still continued rolling about in my dismasted hulk, sometimes with fair, and sometimes with foul weather, either in the Atlantic or Pacific ocean, I knew not which. There were, luckily, provisions enough on board, such as they were, to have supported me, I should have thought, for any length of time; but existence was aming too painful to me to admit of my being able to endure it much longer. Let no man talk of solitude, as long as he can see around him fields, and trees, and mountains. All these hold communion with his spirit, and as they vary their garb according to the season, he can read in them lessons of wisdom and improvement. But on the wide and changeless ocean, where human sympathies exist not, and where the very element seems of a nature uncongenial to ours, there, where the eye can see nothing but rolling waters, and the ear catch no sound but that of the breaking wave, there speak of solitude, there feel its horrors, feel your affections stagnant within you, and your mental capabilities mouldering away into nothingness. Look at the sun, the clouds, the stars, and ask, in the frenzy of despair, why you are the only created thing curst with the curse of speech? One night the thunder walked through the air; but its peals were welcome to me, for they sounded like the voice of an unseen giant. The waning moon looked dimly down through the snatches of the hurrying clouds, and the lurid lightning flashed far and wide below, as if in mockery of the pale light of the melancholy wanderer of heaven. There was alternate gloom and brightness. In the gloom was heard the savage roaring of the thunder-laden winds; in the brightness was seen the tortured ocean heaving in convulsions, and flinging its spray in impotent wrath far up into the dark concave. Such scenes had become familiar to me, and had almost lost their terrors. My crazy ship went tumbling on, and I had lashed myself to the remnant of one of her masts, lest I should be swept from the deck as every thing else had been already. Again the moon looked down for an instant, again the lightning gushed from the clouds— Good God! a vessel, with all her sails set, bounded past me, and I heard the cries of human beings. Another gleam of moonshine,-she was still there! Another blaze of lightning, she was gone,-down-down into the gulf for ever! The storm passed away, and I was still safe. The wind was in the north, and the ship sailed on. One morning I came upon deck; it was clear, though cold, and the sea at some little distance seemed peopled with islands. How my heart bounded! I was approaching them! Shipwreck—death was all I desired, provided I met it in an attempt to make the land. I came nearer the islands.-Heaven and earth! they were islands of ice! Where was I? I had been sailing south;-Had I got within the antarctic circle? Ice-nothing but ice. Huge mountains of dreary ice. " I was the first that ever burst Into that silent sea!" I know not how it was, but I sailed far in among those frozen fields. The wind at length shifted, and my course was altered. I retraced part of my way, and went more to the east. One night I was in bed, and my vessel was drifting as usual where it pleased. Suddenly it struck against something with a violent shock and crash. I rushed upon deck; the ship was going to pieces. It seemed to have come upon a reef of rocks. It was calm, and I was a good swimmer. I threw myself into the sea, and reaching some of the more prominent heights, I scrambled up upon them, and waited till daylight should discover to me my situation. It came soon enough; I was on the highest peak of two or three insulated rocks, not a hundred yards in circumference altogether, that rose up from the fathomless depths of the southern ocean till they reached a little above its surface. Water-nothing but water, could be seen around. Here, then, on this unknown rock, which no human eye but mine had ever seen before, it was to be my lot to die. I wonder I did not grow mad at once. I recollect that I lost all belief in my personal identity. I could not conceive it possible that I was the same being who had once so keenly enjoyed all the pleasures of social and civilized life;-who had loved and hated, who had laughed and wept, who |