old when he gave to the world this-with the exception of Paradise Lost-this unequalled mass of practical wisdom, full of "Years which bring the philosophic mind." In the words of his own venerable Nestor, he would not regret the loss of youth, knowing how "Other gifts the bounteous gods bestow Or as Wordsworth has beautifully worked out the same experience-truth embodied in immortal song: "Those aching joys are now no more, And all those dizzy raptures. Not for this Have followed for such loss: I would believe Not a breath of air; we are becalmed; the sunset most gorgeous! pillars and domes of flame-coloured cloud, partly lost in blue, pale blue fleecy masses, with a blending of all colours. I exclaimed, with Wordsworth, "Ah me! how quiet earth and ocean were ;" but could not continue his exclamation "As quiet all within me." These dead calms were to me the most awful and restless visitations possible. Not alone were they suspensions, sleeps of the elements; they were the embodiment of the universality of death. Time and eternity seemed blended into one; the very sun seemed to rest in the heavens; motion, if not space, was in its grave; it did not seem possible that there could have been, or be, such a thing as a wind. The land we had left, or for which we were bound, were the illusions of an idle faith; any other kind of enchantment seemed preferable. Still we have a kind of halfconsciousness of some little change in the universe: the sun slides quietly down and dips leisurely into the ocean; and the moon and the stars come tranquilly out and gaze at themselves steadfastly from the dark blue heavens, in the dark deep glassy sea. Progress there is in the planetary system, but none for us. November 2.-No progress; hot intensely in the sun, breezy in the shade. Lat. 6° N., long. 22° W. Here day after day we lie, brought hither by the imperious trade winds, in the neighbourhood of thousands of ships, but few of them in sight: all in the same predicament; Hood might call it a Line-En-graving. November 3.--Fine day, very; ship in sight. This is another ocean sabbath. Now we are once more in motion; two vessels in sight; a shoal of large porpoises very near us. November 4.-Seven ships in sight; the wind brisker, going six knots an hour. Now there are eleven ships in sight, none very near us. Lat. 4° 40', long. 21° W. November 5.-We were a week in the variable winds. This night also was squally; a night of utter darkness, a heavy gale of wind, and rain in torrents. Lat. 4° 4' N. November 6.—The sea rolling heavily, with the storm abated; we expect to be again, if not now, shortly in the south-east trade-winds. The breeze is brisk and more regular, as in the former trades. Flying-fish again, start up also as in the other trades. We have a ship a-head, another aft, so three of us are sailing in one direction, only a few miles from each other; one of these, a light quick sailer, had all the afternoon been gaining upon us; and in the dusk she passed us by, and was still, when it was star-light at a speakable distance: she thought fit to reply to our captain's two first questions, but declined all other talk. We set down the people for broad-bottomed unmoveable Dutchmen; it was, doubtless, "Some rich old burgher of the ocean flood." November 7.-A most beautiful morning; light wind, going only four knots an hour; the sky at sunset was ribbed_with_salmoncolour, very rich and beautiful. I hope we have done, for some time at least, with flaming copper-coloured sunsets—the certain presage of tempests. November 8.-Lat. 2° 20' N., long. 23° 32′ W. November 9.-Once more in the trade winds. November 10.-This day is a remarkable one in our voyage: at 1 o'clock P.M. we crossed the Equinoctial Line. The line-shaving was a droll affair, the pageant was grotesque enough. Neptune and his wife, goddess I ought to say, were quite in approved costume. I little thought, when busily oiling paper to wrap my linen up in at Nottingham for the voyage, that the dark brown would turn to a golden yellow, and part of it be fashioned into a most superb crown for our God of the Equator! But so it was; and worn by him, until he got drunk, with becoming dignity. Alas for our poor elemental divinity, the Goddess got drunk too! and so outrageous grew she in her drink, that for her own and the public safety she was obliged to be put in irons having shown herself bloodily inclined, and threatened the lives of several on board. She behaved herself well during the shaving, as did also "the stern god of sea," as Milton terms him, until, seizing her lord's trident, she broke it to atoms over some unruly fellow's back. Some twenty or twenty-five were shaved, soused head-over-heels in a sail filled with water, and moreover had buckets full of water dashed upon them; few on shipboard escaped being wet through, even of such as were not shaved. I took my station above the motley assembly, and thence witnessed, unshaved and unwet, the whole process of initiation. The shaving-day was on the 11th of November, being postponed till then, it being Sunday about one o'clock P.M. that we crossed the equator, yet even on Sunday Neptune came on board and hailed the ship; inquiring, in his hoarse sea-voice, who we were, and to what port bound? On being satisfactorily answered, he disappeared again in the sea, promising to revisit us in the morning and inquire into our healths. A flame attended his going far to leeward of us, seen for miles illuminating gloriously the darkness of the sea and the night. The flame smelt of tar: some supposed it a flaming tar-barrel. It might, only that such thoughts are impious; and only allowable when we reflect that Neptune is a very old sailor, and might rather be expected to smack of that kind of thing than any other. That night too, though Sunday night, water was thrown about in all directions. The Lord of Misrule was the only lord who exercised any authority. I escaped almost miraculously, not having a wet thread upon me, yet I was here and there, everywhere, amongst the thickest, and saw others have bucketfuls thrown upon them; one bucketful was indeed dashed at me, but I leapt behind a sail, and that received it instead of me. "Are you wet?" asked many a dripping comfortless wretch. Had I said "No," half-a-dozen bucketfuls would have been the answer. I, Quaker-like, answered with another question, "Who indeed is not?" so in the dark they thought me as wet as themselves. In the afternoon a ship was observed coming after us, and she neared us as it grew dark. It was a large vessel, and evidently a good sailer; she came at a short distance from us, and opposite our ship, when it was neither light nor dark, there being a crescent moon three days old, and the stars; there she was, too distant to be spoken with, and it was too dark for us to see her colours or read her name. We decided that it was a frigate, and English, for at sunset we heard the evening gun. The sound of it was strange in this solitary sea; for we might say, as in Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, "We seemed the first that ever burst She passed us very easily, and was out of sight in the morning. Now that we are near the South American coast, we are reminded of Robinson Crusoe, and of his attempt to reach the mainland. He speaks of the Oroonoko, which is rather further hence to the north-east. November 12.--Alas! "the god of the ocean," Neptune, was last night royally drunk, and this morning has a boundless thirst upon him. Noah, that famous old sea-captain, after the first long sea-voyage, aweary of the universal briny element, got drunk, and almost all his mariner-children have inherited the infirmity. Winds November 13.-Lat. 5° 11' S., long. 29° 50′ W. stormy; the heavens clear; the sea foaming; sailing south-westhalf-south, five, six, and seven knots an hour. November 14.-Lat. 7° 24′ S., long. 30° 50′ W. The days bright, the winds gradually eastward, and our course more to the south. The nights rather rougher, but starlight, moonlight, and beautiful. The Pole-star has passed away to the northwards. The Pleiades and Orion are northing. Sirius is a brilliant nightly luminary about ten o'clock; and Venus, almost lustrous as a moon, about four o'clock in the morning. The flying-fish still start up continually about us. They are seldom observed except in the trades. What a lazy luxury it is, in breeze and sun to lean over the weather-bow of the vessel, hour after hour, thoughtful, or in Southey's mood of mind, "pensive but not in thought," to watch the waves in endless procession, in evervarying forms the prow dashing them into wild spray-falling in perpetual rainbows, ousted as perpetually by the foam. This indulgence is akin to Byron's "Alone o'er steeps and foamy falls to lean : This is not solitude, 'tis but to hold Converse with Nature's charms, and see her stores unrolled." Not more than 200 miles from the coast of South America; one day's sail with a brisk wind. November 15.-The sea beautifully rude; rolling in large waves, deeply brightly blue, breaking everywhere into foam. Not more than 250 miles from the South American coast. November 16.-Two vessels in sight; one outward-bound, the other a Danish brig, the Dolphin, from Rio Janeiro, for New York. We this day saw two other dolphins; a beautiful sight the fish of that name. The first glimpse this that we had of these many-coloured wonderful creatures. Lat. 11° 45′ S., long. 33° 30' W. November 17.- One of many fine days. Lat. 13° 45' S., long. 34° W. . November 18.-The sun nearly meridian, casting the smallest perceptible shadow: two more days, and it will pour down upon us perpendicularly its scorching fire. Our first mate stuck his penknife upright in the deck, and the shadow lay as nearly equally round it as could be. It is quite a novel sight to us North-men to see the sun in the zenith; exactly over-head. "There is a fine breeze coming," cried the mate. "How does he know?" thought I to myself; "these sailors are very weatherwise." I looked to the east, whence the softest breath of air was fanning us, yet in the sky was no palpable indication of wind; there was none of that whisking about of the clouds, none of that sweepiness, nor yet any squally appearance, no massy pillowy or black clouds ; "How can he tell?" I looked on the sea to the farthest verge of the horizon eastward, and there saw -not the wind, certainly—but what the mate had seen, a visible indication of it, the waves spreading and sweeping broadly on, with a regular and stately march. On they came, the wide expanse foam-crested. Now they are not far off; now they are even here they dash playfully high against the ship: the sails are filled, and we rush pleasantly onward. Lat. 15° 58′ S. November 19.-Unfortunately we have lost very early the trade winds; the ship veering to all points of the compass. Sailors doing little but reversing the sails; and, quite a novelty, we have been for two hours becalmed. Many birds are observed going in one direction; these the mariners term boobies. We must be near the isle of Trinidad. Cloudy and rainy. Lat. 17° 51' S. AN OLD-NEW SEA BALLAD. We had not been at sea, at sea When our steward said, with a very long face, Not a bit of cheese had we. The sago and the arrow-root And there were fears about the water, To eat the salt-pork was sorry work— The beef it was rank and the water stank, |