bears of us. Ready about-not a word! Now look out for a smooth, boy, helm's a-lee-stay sail sheet! Come, she'll do that, any how. Main-top sail haul! haul avall ! There's a gallant craft under her four sails!" And the master took one turn of contented pride, five short steps and back again, upon his reeling deck, catching by the weather rigging as he passed along.

The fog was now drifting swiftly past the vessel ;—no eye could pierce or stare against it. At every plunge she struck against the opposing billow with a force that shook her to her centre, and every timber, mast, spar, groaned as if each had been endowed with a separate voice to utter forth its separate tale of suffering and complaint. The master went below, to consult once more his well-thumbed chart, which lay on a small swinging table, under the glancing beam of a solitary lamp at the foot of the companion ladder. There he sat down, a huge bundled mass of wet fearnought, the lower half of his face wrapped in the folds of a red worsted comforter, and the upper shaded by a shapeless slouched hat, which shed its frequent drops upon the object of his study. For a minute he sat gazing on the unrolled half of the chart on which, as though to nail his careering vessel to the station he supposed her to have reached in her represented course, stood infixed the closed points of his trusty compasses, in contrast with the broad expansive fingers of the other hand, which lay hard by, spread over a space denoting many a rood of "shoal water" with "small shells," "mud," grey sand."

or 66

"The Skull Rock," muttered he, " by rights should be somewhere on the starboard beam. If so, we are well

F

under the lee of the Seven Grave Stones, and the Devil's Kitchen is on our quarter. But who knows?-such a night as this is! not a glimpse to be caught; and there's no truth in soundings; for, if we could get a cast of the lead worth anything, with the arming on, (which is an impossibility, going this gallows pace,) what would that tell? Five fathom, or four and a half, with small shells, tells nothing; it's the same for miles along this coast, till you're slap ashore on the Catchups; and then-Mate," continued he, in a louder tone, as he rose from the depths again on deck, and, in flat contradiction of his late category respecting the uselessness of soundings—“ Mate,” said he, " send a hand into the weather chains; send the coloured man, do you hear? and bid him not sing out the soundings, but give them aft to me quietly. I'll be close to him. Whist! will you, forward there? Hold your chattering, and listen if you can hear the send of the sea in the caverns to leeward."

"And a half quarter, four."

66

Very well, Lilly,-bear a hand with it again-heave cheerily. Go forward, will you, Mate, and try and keep a better look out than they chaps are doing on the forecastle. Down with the helm, boy-down with it for your life!— Forward there! let the stay-sail sheet fly-check the lee head braces! Helm's a-lee !—Jump there, can't ye hear? -are ye all asleep? Hard down with that helm, boy, do, and give her a chance if she will stay, for I'll be shot if we've room to wear her. Brail up the try sail!-she hangs!

And now came a moment of anxious expectation, such as only those know who have felt what it is when all in

this world for them depends on the wind catching a head sail right. For one deadly half minute, she hung, her bows bobbing heavily, almost bowsprit under, the stay sail flapping as she dropped into the hollow of the sea, and undetermined on which side it should fill, as she rose again; the fore-top sail doing nothing to bring her round, sometimes back to the mast, and then full again, at every lurch the labouring vessel gave; and no object was visible, to show if she was at all disposed to pay off. The master rushed to the weather quarter, and looked for a moment anxiously down on the foaming water. At last-" Stern away, by Jove! shift your helm !-all's right-about she comes !-main-top sail haul-haul avall-fore-top bowline -out with the try sail again! Cheerily, my hearts! what are ye afraid of? Silence, and keep a better look out there forward! Ease her head, boy-no near-very well thus!"

Now, "very well" is a very compendious phrase, and does not always describe very correctly the general condition of affairs in the vessel to whose steersman this cousoling assurance is given. Yet here it spoke, with tolerable fairness, the state of mind of those on board, relieved from the danger which had just before been imminent. She was now on the other tack, standing towards the bold and beetling rock which faced the shoals at about a mile off, with an even chance of weathering it without another board, if she could continue to show sail enough to the gale.

But the water was high over her lee side, and it was all she could do to stagger through it. Yet the peril was no longer urgent and immediate; and, as to what might next

be apprehended, all was doubtful and indistinct; and the mind of man is always sanguine, and never more so than when at sea, where a sense of duty is always present and lively to support and assist. At sea there are so many moments when, all that is demanded from skill, experience, and forethought having been done, and no instant exertion being required or practicable, there is a pause, in which the mind naturally reposes on hope, and hope reposed on soon becomes confidence.

But why delight to portray the sea in its terrors, when there is so much more of what is sublime in its smiles? How ill have they scanned the real beauty and majesty of that glorious element, who combine them with the notion of an angry sea! The sea is never angry: it is much too mighty to be angry. How inadequate an image of infinite power is presented in a storm at sea! a thing with which human genius, human courage, nay, human force, may cope, and over which it is usually empowered to prevail— whose violence is great, but still is limited and surmountable. But, when all is calm, and boundless, and fathomless, no waves to be buffeted by the stalwart prow, no stooping clouds between man and heaven, but the depths of ocean and the depths of sky blending in the warm bright glory of a summer horizon, without a visible line to fence in or measure space; then may the mind take in a notion of Omnipotence. It is glorious to gaze upwards, from some spring-tide meadow, into that clear vault, from out the stores of which descend the viewless influences of light, of warmth, of freshening dew, and then perchance to hear the trill of the far off lark, poised above all scope of human eye, as it were the note of some glad spirit,

warbling forth its joy to earth from the bosom of heaven itself. But more glorious still to look into that bright but inscrutable sea, the only pure, intense blue in nature, compared with which the sky itself is pale; that tranquil water, in whose awful bosom, far, far below, there are depths beyond which the seaman's lead will sink no deeper, from which the line returns slackened to his hand, where all things that can reach so deep, and which time has not consumed, remain hung in space unmeasurable beneath them and around them. To survey this, to ponder on this, may furnish an image of the power that rules beyond the regions of human sight or search.

The pure taste of ancient Greece-pure even among the infusions of its monstrous mythology-taught that perfect power is best expressed in perfect calmness. It formed an image of matchless strength*, but leaning on its club and lion's skin: it formed an image of matchless speed †, but reclining in the languid symmetry of limbs which, if roused to vigorous exertion, could spring aloft from the mere impulse of the small wing bound to the heel: it formed an image of matchless majesty in the statue of the great ruler of the gods, where it sat sedate, not bracing the sinewy terrors of a mortal arm, to hurl the brazen thunderbolt, but resting one hand upon the wand of Peace, and in the other bearing Victory; a symbol of such magic influence, that he who formed it, it is said, scarce

The statue of Hercules, called the Farnese.

The statue of Mercury, found at Pompeii, and now in the collection of the King of Naples.

The great statue of Jove, made by Phidias, and placed in the temple at Olympia.