Mil. My poem is designed for no such unworthy end. The whole strength of no mean or inglorious mind has been applied to the creation of it. Not without frequent prayer to the enlightening source of all intellect, was it resolved upon; and as I hold, not without obtaining direction and illumination from above, was it accomplished. What, Elwood! shall your brethren in their conventicles lay claim to a perception of a Divine afflatus, and I will not dispute the truth of their assertions, illiterate and immethodical as their rhapsodies are, and therefore bearing small evidence to those beyond your pale of communion, that the spirit of knowledge has prompted them--and shall I, who have felt within me that exaltation above my common self, those powers of reaching in thought beyond this visible diurnal sphere, those concomitant promptings of pregnant matter, and meet harmonious language, those periodical unveilings of the mental eyes which at other whiles were as dark as these faded corporeal orbs which roll uselessly beneath this channeled forehead-shall I, who have found the tenor of my devoutest aspirations answered, who have arisen from prostration before the Divine footstool with the new sense of inner light imparted, and who have been permitted, though by other fingers than mine own, to inscribe on these pages a strain of poesy to which the harps of Solyma would not disdain to respond-shall I fear to call the power of having done this, inspiration from that sacred intelligence which touched the lips of Isaiah, till they sang of things to come in majestic numbers; and which same spirit gave the Son of Jesse to open his dark sayings upon the harp, or to awake the lute, so that by thanks giving, and the voice of melody, that heart might be disburdened of its musings, in which the fire of devotion was ready for kindling? Elw. I think, friend Milton, thou art almost rapt out of thyself even now. I will not argue on the topic with thee at present—we have oft enough canvassed our differences in religion, and neither hath far won upon the other in the way of convic tion-but I trust, yea I am assured, that we think kindly and Christianly of each other's principles, and Heaven is wide enough for all who get thither, come by whichever path their conscience tells them is fittest. But to thy poem again-a thought struck me after concluding the perusal of it thou hast said much of the losing of Paradise, and surely that is the more grievous and ungracious subject to dwell upon-what hast thou to say upon the regaining of it? Mil. Ha! you say well-true it is, the Redemption is in reality far the more important subject; but whether so well adapted for poetry, is other matter of inquiry. Paradise Lost? The counterpart may be Paradise Won or Retrieved, or (what shall we say?) Regained. This is no unworthy hint of yours, good Elwood. I will turn it over in my thoughts when I am alone. Meanwhile I will trouble you to read the rest of that play of Euripides, in which you were interrupted when you were last here. I cannot be reconciled to the barbarous northern pronunciation of all others who are kind enough to read to me, and I shall enjoy those silver sounds, the echoes of classic climes, to which, for my sake, you have conformed your tongue. Begin, friend, absence has given me double relish for the treat. ON A CHILDE PLAYING. SWEET bud, that bye and bye shall be a flowre; I love, younge Fawn, to see thee sport; and yet Let thy proud mother smile to see thy wayes, Let them enjoye-whilst yet they can enjoye; Though many a high presage be cast upon thee- Time's train is lacquey'd still by Wearinesse ; Or soothe the aching brows that they enfold? Oh! 'tis a thriftless bargain of a life, To live to know that bliss is but pretence- The profit nothing-but Remorse th' expense; Thou art an old pretender, grey-beard Age; Would turn again with no unwilling feet.- T. D. THE MAN-OF-WARʼS-MAN. (Continued from Volume XII. page 650.) Just twig 'em, how closely and snugly they're knotted, We left our hero and his watchmates seated in their birth, where the recent fate of the unfortunate Zamba came speedily under discussion. "I say, Lyson, I do suppose as how they'll not be for touching Quashee over until to-morrow after divisions?" "Why, what the devil could you suppose else, when you heard the skipper, as well as I did, bid Lieutenant Fyke give ould Falmthimble his orders. I'll warrant me any money, the ould fellow's as busy as a fly in a tarbucket even now about Quashee; touching his little black majesty off as trimly and snug for the bottom as needle and tar-twine, and a brace of good thirty-two pound marbles, can make him. Many a good laugh I've had at the number of little pic-nicks the old fellow goes through in bedizening an old ship for his last spell." "And I says for certain, Bill, that were there ever folly at all on the ocean, that's a part on't." "Oho! MasterWiseacre;-pray, how do you make out that?" "How do I make it out?-why, I makes it out soft and easy enough, d'ye see, Master Consequence, with your wiseacring. Pray, what is't to me after my bellows have ceased, and my toplights doused, what you makes on me? I don't care a rush, in that there case, whether I'm chucked overboard with a shot under cach foot, or as rid of every one article as the moment I first came into the world-not I, shipmate, I assure you-for if ever you live to see that there day, you may remember what I'm saying, that you'll please Dick Hawkins equally well whether he goes out of the port the devil a pin's worth of trouble obliged to you, or is launched off rigged out in Peter Palmthimble's most stylish manner," "Why, all that may be true enough, my brave fellow; but then, as ould Peter says, it's the decency of the affair, you know; and I don't know a single thing that pleases me more than to see the poor cold carcase of a favourite pell treated with care and attention. O, long life to old Peter, say I, and long may he pique himself in rigging out an old ship for his run to the bottom; for, to give the devil his due, he certainly douses them off very smartish and tidy after all—and you know, Master Marling, the boatswain, swears, that there's never a he in the fleet whose quiet men slip half so handsomely off the grating as those that have come through the nippers of old Peter Palmthimble." "But what does the old fellow mean, Bill, by sporting a couple of needles through the noses of all the poor devils I've ever seen him rig out for the bottom? I've seen a good many in my day slipped off for that there trip, but never, never, not I, did I see any more than one used?" "O, heaven knows, Jack, what he means; for thof I've often asked him his reason for that there rig of his, he'd never answer me. He must have some one, or other, however, and I've little doubt they are good ones; for he's a poring, thinking, shrewdish kind of a chap, this same Palmthimble; and can heave the log, or take an observation, better than e'er a young gentleman in the hooker." 66 Why, why, we all knows that, Bill, and none better, in faith, than our friend Peter himself; but, chucking all that aside, did you twig the skipper, man, when the Doctor told him as how little Quashee had slipped his cable?-My eye! he screwed his chalky muzzle into so many different twists, and turned up so the whites of his day-lights, that I really thought, thinks I, for sartain he's a-going to sing out." "Bah, bah, my dear boy, don't you believe it;-he's got too smacking a splice of the devil in him to pipe for such a trifle as the death of a little silly you blackamoor boy. No, no, my soul, that will never go down; for to tell piece of my mind, as we're talking of a this here boy, I should have been as well pleased, so I would, had they given him a passage at once, instead of rigging out, and keeping his little black carcase on board all night, for no reason at all to my thinking, but to frighten people, and give the skipper another opportunity of playing the parson, and sporting yon fine fancy gilded Prayer-book of his'n to-morrow. The truth is, Jack, I can't relish the thought of a dead carcase being in the same hooker with me at all, at alland the more I thinks on't, the worse I grow. I never heard of any good come of such doings, not I; and nothing pleases me more, since it must be so, d'ye see, than the having nothing to do with the mid-watch tonight." "Why, what have you to fear in the mid-watch, Lyson ?" cried our hero, in a note of encouraging inquiry. "A devilish sight more than you knows anything about, Master Neddy, for all the larning and scrawling you make about that there log of the Lieutenant's. What have I got to fear, forsooth?-marry, I supposes you thinks, that, because I can neither read nor write, I never did hear in all my life, that there were such things as ghosts, and hobgoblins, and apparitions!-Oh, ho! my buck! Bill Lyson's aboard you in that tack at all events; for he knows all about that there, and a whacking trifle more. He knows, my mates, and he believes it too, that the apparition or ghost of a dead person never leaves the carcase until it has had proper Christian burial;—if you ask for why, then I say because it can't, being perfectly impossible. Trust me, my lads, and I think I've lived long enough both to see and feel it, that try any of you to-morrow to give anything less to an old ship than proper Christian burial, and he'll hover and wriggle about you continually night and day, playing the very devil in frightening folks. Why, mates, the very stories I've heard from old Joe of the Terrible, to say nothing more, would convince a very heathen man to believe all about it-far less were I to tell you about my own experience.-D-n it, Davis, you may grin, thof it only shews your ignorance, my lad-but I've not forgotten the many frights I've had in my day-and particularly one in the Terrible-Klaas, my boy, you were there, with that ill-spliced pin of yours -d'ye mind that morning?" "Ha, ha, ha!" roared the Netherlander, "mindsh dat morn-Hegger and sklyt! the same as now. I vid tell it you, mates-'tis bon, much vat you call laughter story. We were board the Terrible (ver large vessel-sacre Maria, what work! up de Mediterrane out de Yankee-quarters every day -boom-boom, boom, night-dayguns)-both in sick bay-ver ill-I had mine leg here, and Bill had him's head there, vat you call” 66 Pshaw, Nicholas, you're going to make the devil's own yarn of it—Let me tell the story." "Nong, peste, nong!-Ver well, mates, Bill had him's head there, ver, ver sore, and he vash vat you call thirsty, and so vash I-Ver well, Bill jumps out his hammock, and goes bring vater.-Ver well, Jumbo, de skipper's vat you call monkey, vash skipping and grinning so about all de sick-bayJesu! how he vash larking, here, dere, all about! So you see Bill's pouring out de water so, and I'm looking over my hammock wid my arm so-when vat you call Jumbo comes pop from de hammocks on Bill's shoulders, and throws him's paws round his head so.My eye! vat noise, vat cries!-Bill fell squat de deck-cry de deyvil―de deyvil!-while vat you call Jumbo take de vater from him, and drink so coolly and I so laugh-ha, ha, ha!" "Come, come, Fontina," cried Lyson surlily, "you're touching rather too much of a good thing now; for, hang me if it was that silly story I meant at all, at all. Besides, my boy, you should recollect that it's no joke in my eye to come over people's frailties in that there lousy manner, particularly in a matter where a person's not themselves, as was my case that day; for if the truth must be told, maties, you must know that I'd got a smacking whifle over the sconce a few days before, in a boarding affair, from a d-d tall Spanish sworder, and of course was rather somewhat weakish and light-headed.-But what of all that now-the wound is healed, and forgotten; and, barring the time when he gets an overshare of grog, Bill Lyson's as good a man as ever.-But avast with such nonsense, my hearts! I were talking of ghosts and figures of the dead. Now, I'll convince you all at once, by telling you a real true story -one, my boys, that I can swear to, for I were told it by ould Oliver, the forecastle-man, when I was hardly the height of a marlin-spike; and since that time, which wasn't yesterday, I've heard it read in a book, and sung in a song. The song begins in this manner, you must all have heard it Captain Oram went to sea, On board of the Benjamin, ho! Now, mates, I've seen the Benjamin often when I was a boy; for she lay long an empty hulk in one of the Liverpool docks-nobody caring to have anything to do with her. And as for Captain Oram, I don't know what became of him, thof I've heard it said as how he died raving mad.-But, avast, I've begun at the wrong end of my story. Now, pay attention, my mates, and don't put me out by any questions, and you shall hear all about it. You must know, that this same story was a mighty favourite of old Oliver's, -thof he had hundreds of such like; for I always did remark, that just let a fellow make the least mention of it in his hearing, and he in the humour at the time, and you'd set him a spinning at it directly, for all the world like a barge-mop, to your very heart's wish. -Well, my lads, this same story of his'n, which we commonly used to call THE BLOODY BREAD-BAG, used commonly to make sail in this here manner, as I shall presently tell you.-Hem! "You must know, then, my lads, that the good ship the Benjamin, belonging to Liverpool, was a fine large smacking hooker, mayhap about 450 or 500 tons, which traded between that port and the West India islands, and was commanded by a fellow of the name of Jerry Oram, a butcher's son of Bristol; a great horse of a chap as I've heard say, who had his starboard eye doused, and wore large red whiskers. Now, this same Jerry Oram, though an excellent seaman, was like too many of the same line, a complete knave,-by which I mean, you know, as the saying is, he was a harbour-saint and a sea-devil; quite a tartar of a fellow, that stuck at nothing, but treated those under his command, as soon's he got fairly to sea, just as it pleased him,-pinching some of their grub, and denying their right to any grog, starting and abusing others, for he was very liberal both of his fists and his feet, and almost constantly cheating some one or other poor fellow out of his wages. Numerous complaints had been made against him on these and such like matters to the owners; but the rogue had such an invincible cheek, and so smooth and oily a tongue, that he got over them all, and came always off with flying colours; nor was it until their best hands had left him that the owners would make the least inquiry into bis evil doings. Well, at last they did so, or at least they pretended to do so; and by dint of blarney, plenty of grog, and fair promises, the Benjamin was once more fairly manned, and set sail outward-bound. No sooner had they cleared the Land's-end, however, than you'll not hinder Jerry from commencing the old game, so that by the time they arrived in Montego Bay, and had got rid of their cargo, most of his hands, heartily sick of his bad faith and ill usage, either cut their stick, or refused to go any farther with him. In vain did the owners there cajole and flatter them, and in vain did Captain Oram speechify and promise amendment; they were no longer to be deceived, and resolutely refused to handle another rope-yarn belonging to him. All that he could fleech out of them was, that they shouldn't leave the ship until he procured other hands from Port-Royal, for which place he immediately set out, the Benjamin meaning to stand athwart to the Gold Coast, in order to pick up a few hundreds of them there Blackamoor devils,-what d'ye call 'em-which at that time were getting scarce in the island. Well, in a few days Captain Oram returned, bringing a gang of fellows with him who would not have adorned the thinnest shell of a French privateer that ever spread canvass in the Channel. They were a set of regular built tatterdemalions; of all colours, blacks, browns, reds, and whites, and of all countries, English, Dutch, Danish, French, Spanish, and Portuguese; and I really believe that the only handy fellow amongst them was my old mess-mate, Oliver, who had lost his own ship in a cruize on shore. No time was now lost in fitting out the Benjamin for her proposed new cargo, and preparing her for sea; and as the owners, at last, had begun to suspect that all was not perfectly fair on the part of Captain Jerry, they re |