easterly wind wafted him from Spithead, with the following glowing paradox in preference of expatriation over return.

"Oh the joy! the relief unspeakable! of feeling one's self fairly under weigh, and of seeing the white cliffs of Old England sink fast in the north-eastern horizon right to windward! Let the concoctors of romances and other imaginary tales say what they please of the joys of returning home; give me the happiness of a good departure, and a boundless world of untried enjoyments ahead. If a man be out of debt and out of love, or only moderately involved in either of these delicate predicaments; if he have youth and health and tolerable prospects, a good ship under his foot, a good officer above him, and good messmates to serve with, why need he wear and tear his feelings about those he leaves behind? Or rather, why need he grieve to part from those who are better pleased to see him vigorously doing his duty than idling in other people's way at home? Or wherefore should he sigh to leave those enjoyments in which he cannot honourably participate till he has earned his title to them by hardy service?

*

"On the other hand, who is there so insensible as not to feel the deepest apprehension very often, as I know by sad experience, almost devoid of a single drop of pleasure-on returning from a long and distant voyage? How can he tell in what condition he will now find the friends from whom he parted so long ago, and of whom he may, perhaps, not have heard a word for many a long season of anxiety? Is it not too probable that his busy fancy will conjure up many more images of death and sickness, of losses and sorrows, than it can paint pictures of health, good fortune, and happiness? And will it ever happen, if the interval of absence have been long, that some of these gloomy forebodings will not be realized? May it not prove but too often the case, that those who, from being the dearest to us, we had ingeniously and fondly exempted from the fatal doom, are its first victims? Indeed, I have on these occasions been grieved and irritated at myself for canvassing beforehand, in my own mind, and in spite of every effort to change the current of my thoughts, which of all the friends in whom I was interested I could consent to lose with the least regret! And when the pile of accumulated letters is first placed in our hands after a voyage, with what sickening eagerness do we not turn from the superscription to discover the colour of the seal !"—vol. i. pp. 123-125.

We shall be forgiven for passing over a Chapter on the Trade Winds, (highly valuable in itself, but somewhat too recherché for our present light examination) and sundry other matters connected with the progress of the voyage, and we hasten to the very sensible observations on the Sunday discipline on board a ship of war. A Captain (says Mr. Hall) nearly always has it in his power either to make Sunday a day of rest or of extra trouble to his crew; and if he prefers the latter, he opens, as may be supposed, a weekly renewed source of needless irritation. Some work,

66

it is evident, must be performed, but comparative repose for the most part may be obtained by judicious management; and the sailor, without being so far fatigued by devotional exercises as "to vote the whole concern a bore," and to send his " psalm-singing Captain to the devil," may feel the value of the performance of Religious duties not a little increased by a tacit association of them with an agreeable suspension of labour. In the beau-ideal of a sea Sunday morning, the decks have been so far scrubbed and "holy-stoned" on Saturday, as to require little more than washing; during breakfast the following order is "sung out," according to the climate and the weather. Between the Tropics it runs, D'ye hear, there! fore and aft! clean for muster at five bellsduck frocks and white trowsers." In colder latitudes it is changed to" blue jacket and trowsers!" and the toilette in rainy or blowing weather is reduced yet lower, to "clean shirts and a shave!" The latter operation is deemed requisite on ship-board twice in each week. An extra quarter above the ordinary half hour is allowed for Sunday breakfast and “ trimming;" and when the forenoon watch is called, the "between decks" are carefully cleaned. At half-past ten the drum beats to divisions, the muster takes place on deck, the reports are made, and the Captain goes round the ship. The galley or kitchen, with its coppers and ovens, and the pease-soup in preparation (some of which is always let off for inspection by a twist of the cock of the boiler with the end of the cook's wooden leg,) are carefully examined. The hospital is visited, where each invalid separately receives a few kind words of comfort and encouragement, and the surgeon is warned for the general ear, "always to send aft at dinner time for any thing and every thing he may require for the sick." Then follows a survey of the lower deck, of the births of the midshipmen and of the marines, of the cock-pit and the remaining Inferi, till after a descent, occupying a full half-hour, the Captain emerges again upon quarter-deck, and turning to the First Lieutenant, orders him to rig the Church." We must presuppose, in the following scene, that the weather is fine.

"The carpenters and the watch on deck soon carry aft their benches and mess-stools; but as these are not sufficient to afford accommodation for all hands, as many capstan-bars as may be required are likewise brought up and placed athwart the quarter-deck, with their ends resting on match-tubs and fire-buckets, or on the carronade slides. These seats occupy the whole of the space from the break of the quarter-deck and the belaying bits round the mainmast, as far as the companion-hatchway. Chairs from the cabin and gun-room are also placed abaft all, for the captain and officers, and on the lee side for the war

rant officers and mids; for, it need scarcely be mentioned that due subordination is made to keep its place even in our church.

"The pulpit stands amidships, either on the after-gratings, or on the deck immediately before the hatchway. In some ships, this part of the nautical church establishment consists of a moveable reading-desk, made expressly for the purpose, but brought up from the carpenter's store-room only when wanted; sometimes one of the binnacles is used for this purpose; and I remember a ship in which the prayer-book was regularly laid on a sword-rack, or stand, holding six dozen naked cut lasses. The desk is covered over with a signal-flag, as well as the hassock for the chaplain to kneel upon, which is usually a grape or canister shot-box, surmounted by a cheese of great-gun wads, to make it soft." -vol. ii. pp. 45, 46.

Rarely (says Captain Hall) is a more attentive, or more orderly congregation met with than that which may be found on board a man-of-war. The influence of a discreet Captain over the minds of his younger officers and midshipmen, is rated very highly; not so that which he possesses over the heterogeneous mass from which his crew is formed. It is not a little painful to remember that the melancholy picture below is sketched by a keen observer, ardently devoted to his profession, and always accustomed to regard even its hardships in a favourable light.

It grieves me heartily to own, that while I speak with so much confidence of the good which may be effected on the minds of the midshipmen, I feel scarcely any thing but despair on turning to the case of the sailors. They are such a strange set of beings, generally so entirely uneducated, and although, as I have repeatedly mentioned before, by no means naturally irreligious, often so totally destitute of any thing de serving the name of principle, or even of any ground-work of habitual reflection, upon which alone such a superstructure can be raised, that I really cannot venture even to conjecture how people of such very loose habits and dissipated minds are to be turned permanently to right thinking on this matter. Unfortunately, too, at the end of every three or four years, when at length the discipline of a ship has been perfected, and the empire of order so fully established that the influence of authority might, if ever, be expected to produce something out of these rough materials, the crew are not only paid off, but turned absolutely adrift into the worst holes and corners, the very sinks of society, where every thing good they have been taught, and every thing good they may have hoped or wished to learn, is speedily taken from them, and all sorts of iniquity poured into their place! In one moment are rudely swept away all their habitual veneration for authority, their cheerful unreflecting dependence on others, together with every nascent feeling of selfrespect, which during several years had been growing up together, and rather inviting than repelling the final and pervading influence of religion. Thus the unhappy sailor is suddenly left at the close of his long toil in a state of destitution fully worse than at first. In a few days,

perhaps hours, after landing, he is pillaged of his money and every rag of clothes except the jacket on his back; and after being forced into drunkenness and every kind of debauchery and vice, he finds himself worn out with disease and intemperance, and becomes literally an outcast from society, amidst the most heartless and profligate of his species, helpless, useless, and hopeless !'-vol. ii. pp. 57-59.

A specimen of Captain Hall's Rhetoric concludes his second volume. We know not how to class it. From an allusion to "the Lesson of the day," in its exordium, we were prepared to call it a Sermon; certain references to the Spectator inclined us to think it a Moral Essay; but the author himself, who certainly knows best what he intended, names it "a Nautical Discourse," and "the first of a Series of Professional Lectures." The subject is the Duty of Cheerfulness; and Captain Hall will pardon us if we express our preference of his incidental teaching over that which is direct. The delightful buoyancy of spirit and manly accommodation to circumstances, the firm resolution to be always contented, and to proffer his right hand even if Ill Fortune should present her ungainly left, characterizing every personal adventure in which Captain Hall is engaged, and forming the burden, if we may so call it, of his two volumes, is far more likely to provoke imitation than any laboured bundle of Ethical precepts which he may draw from his portfolio.

We turn back a few pages to extract a most graphic account of a North-wester off the Cape of Good Hope. It is written in the true spirit of the best parts of the First Series, and the accumulation of little incidents, each true to nature, and each preserved in admirable keeping and proportion to the others, places the whole scene most vividly before the reader's view.

Nothing is more delightful than the commencement of such a fair wind. The sea is then smooth, and the ship seems literally to fly along; the masts and yards bend forwards, as if they would drop over the bows, while the studding-sail booms crack and twist, and unless great care be taken sometimes break across; but still, so long as the surface of the sea is plane, it is astonishing what a vast expanse of canvass may be spread to the rising gale. By and by, however, it becomes prudent to take in the royals, flying-jib, and top-gallant studding-sails. The boatswain takes a look at the gripes and other fastenings of the boats and booms; the carpenter instinctively examines the port-lashings, and draws up the pump-boxes to look at the leathers ; while the gunner sees that all the breechings and tackles of the guns are well secured before the ship begins to roll. The different minor heads of departments, also, to use their own phrase, smell the gale coming on, and each in his respective walk get things ready to meet it. The captain's and gunroom stewards beg the carpenter's mate to drive down a few more cleats and staples, and, having got a cod line or two from the boatswain's yeo

man, or a bank of marline stuff, they commence double lashing all the tables and chairs. The marines' muskets are more securely packed in the arm-chest. The rolling tackles are got ready for the lower yards, and the master, accompanied by the gunner's mate, inspects the lanyards of the lower rigging. All these, and twenty other precautions, are taken in a manner so slow and deliberate that they would hardly catch the observation of a passenger. It might almost seem as if the different parties were afraid to let out the secret of their own lurking apprehension, but yet were resolved not to be caught unprepared.

"Of these forerunners of a gale none is more striking than the repeated looks of anxiety which the captain casts to windward, as if his glance could penetrate the black sky lowering in the north-west, in order to discover what was behind, and how long with safety he might carry sail. Ever and anon he shifts his look from the wind's eye and rests it on the writhing spars aloft, viewing with much uneasiness the stretching canvass all but torn from the yards. Perhaps he takes hold of a backstay, or a weather-brace, now as tight as a harp-string, and mutters to himself, Hold on, good rope!' He then steps below, and for the fortieth time reads off the barometer, and with an anxious sigh acknowledges to himself that the mercury is falling rapidly. Before remounting the ladder he probably takes another look at Horsburgh's General Remarks on the Winds and Weather,' and half makes up his mind to shorten sail before something goes.

"On returning to the deck he finds that during the few minutes he has been below the breeze has freshened considerably, or, it may be, that coming suddenly upon it again he views it differently. At all events, he feels the necessity of getting the sails in while he yet can, or before God Almighty takes them in for him,' as the sailors say when matters have been so long deferred, that not only canvass and yards, but even masts, are at times suddenly wrenched out of the ship, and sent in one confused mass far off to leeward, whirling in the gale !”—vol. ii. pp.

181-184.

While the Captain, who has been long baffled by light Southeastern airs and calms, is reluctant to lose any portion of the "spanking snuffler" which he thinks his masts can possibly bear, his crew are somewhat differently affected.

"The men, who are generally well aware of the necessity of shortening sail long before the captain has made up his mind to call the hands for that purpose, have probably been collected in groups for some time in different parts of the upper deck, talking low to one another, and looking aloft with a start, every now and then, as the masts or yards give an extra crack.

"Well! this is packing on her,' says one, laying an emphasis on the word is.

"Yes!' replies another; and if our skipper don't mind, it will be packing off her presently,' with an emphasis on the word off. Right well do I know these Cape gales,' adds an ancient mariner of the South Seas; they snuffle up in a minute; and, I'll answer for it, the captain