distress at his friend's journey, and amazement at the hardhearted rascal who could first venture to look upon the sea on ship-board, are well known. A Hindoo could not have a greater dread of the ocean. way to the place of his he can write a line.

Poor Ovid, on his exile, wonders how These were delicate

gentlemen at the court of Augustus; and the ancients, it may be said, had very small and bad vessels, and no compass. But their moral courage appears to have been as poor in this matter as their physical. Nothing could have given a Roman a more exalted idea of Cæsar's courage, than his famous speech to the pilot:"You carry Cæsar and his fortunes!" The poets, who take another road to glory, and think no part of humanity alien from them, spoke out in a different manner. Their office being to feel with all, and their nature disposing them to it, they seem to think themselves privileged to be bold or timid, according to circumstances; and doubtless they are so, imagination being the moving cause in both instances. They perceive also, that the boldest of men are timid under circumstances in which

they have no experience; and this helps the agreeable insolence of their candour. Rochester said, that every man would confess himself a coward, if he had but courage enough to do so;-a saying worthy of an ingenious debauchee, and as false with respect to individuals, as it is perhaps true with regard to the circumstances under which any one may find himself. The same person who shall turn pale in a storm at sea, shall know not what it is to fear the face of man; and the most fearless of sailors shall turn pale (as I have seen them do) even in storms of an unusual description. I was once in a scuffle with a party of fishermen on the Thames, when, in the height of their brutal rage, they were checked and made civil by the mention of the word law. Rochester talked like the shameless coward that he had made himself; but even Sir Philip Sidney, the flower of chivalry, who would have gone through any danger out of principle, (which, together with the manly habits that keep a man brave, is the true courage,) does not scruple to speak, with a certain dread, of ships and their strange lodgings.

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Certainly," says he, in his " Arcadia," (Book II.) "there is no danger carries with it more horror, than that which grows in those floating kingdoms. For that dwelling-place is unnatural to mankind; and then the terribleness of the continual motion, the desolation of the far being from comfort, the eye and the ear having ugly images ever before them, doth still vex the mind, even when it is best armed against it."

Ariosto, a soldier as well as poet, who had fought bravely in the wars, candidly confesses that he is for taking no sea voyages, but is content to explore the earth with Ptolemy, and travel in a map. This, he thinks, is better than putting up prayers in a storm. (Satire 3. Chi vuol andar intorno, &c.) But the most amusing piece of candour on this point is that of Berni, in his "Orlando Innamorato," one of the models of the Don Juan style. Berni was a good fellow, for a rake; and bold enough, though a courtier, to refuse aiding a wicked master in his iniquities. He was also stout of body, and a great admirer of stout achievements in others,

which he dwells upon with a masculine relish. But the sea he cannot abide. He probably got a taste of it in the Adriatic, when he was at Venice. He is a fine describer of a storm, and puts a hero of his at the top of one in a very elevated and potent manner: (See the description of Rodomonte, at the beginning of one of his cantos.) But in his own person, he disclaims all partnership with such exaltations; and earnestly exhorts the reader, on the faith of his experience, not to think of quitting dry land for an instant.

"Se vi poteste un uomo immaginare,

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Il qual non sappia quel che sia paura;
E se volete un bel modo trovare
Da spaventar ogni anima sicura;
Quando e fortuna, mettetel' in mare.
Se non lo teme, se non se ne cura,
Colui per pazzo abbiate, e non ardito,
Perch' è diviso da la morte un dito.

È un' orribil cosa il mar crocciato:

È meglio udirlo, che farne la prova.
Creda cia cun a chi dentro v' è stato ;
E per provar, di terra non si mova."

Canto 64, st. 4.

Reader, if you suppose that there can be,

In nature, one that 's ignorant of fear;
And if you'd show the man, as prettily

As possible, how people can feel queer,—
When there's a tempest, clap him in the sea.
If he's not frightened, if he doesn't care,
Count him a stupid idiot, and not brave,
Thus with a straw betwixt him and the grave.

A sea in torment is a dreadful thing:

Much better lie and listen to, than try it.
Trust one who knows its desperate pummelling;
And while on terra firma, pray stick by it.

Full of Signor Berni's experience, and having, in the shape of our children, seven more reasons than he had to avail ourselves of it, we here bade adieu to our winter voyage, and resolved to put forth again in a better season. It was a very expensive change of pose, and cost us more trouble than I can express; but I had no choice, seeing my wife was so ill. A few days afterwards, she was obliged to have forty ounces of blood taken from her at once, to save her life.

pur

Dartmouth is a pretty, forlorn place, deserted of its importance. Chaucer's " Schippmann" was born there, and it still produces