to find that what I had conceived to be a severe storm was not so in reality; and that the great proximity to the shore, and the at all times uneasy working of the waters of this vast ocean, had imparted to a particularly moderate night an appearance of commotion, at once dispelled by day-light. At first, indeed, the whole surface of the water seemed smooth and even, wearing that glassy look which this great mirror of nature at times holds broadly forth to image the bright firmament above; occasionally, however, when watched attentively, might be marked a slight furrow rising above the level, extending to an interminable length on either side, which slowly and gradually swept on, and then spending itself, without breaking, imperceptibly sunk down into its former plane, giving birth to a new rise, that again generated another, until the last threw itself, in a heavy surf, upon the beach. So that upon setting out in the fouroared boat we had been able to hire at the neighbouring fishing village, in order to board the yacht, which, with the help of a glass, we had descried in the offing, and whose appearance had excited various surmises among the brethren of

the net and hook, we found anything but the smooth motion a distant view had promised. The prevalence, for some days past, of a south-easterly wind, which had now fortunately chopped round to the northward, had produced a long heavy ground-swell, which bore us upon its wide and deep unbroken waves, that, throwing our bow aloft, and lifting upon its back our tiny bark, lightly as its own bubbles, rolled proudly on, smooth and tranquil, in long majestic folds, from under us, casting us from off its wide shoulders, as though spurning the unworthy burden, into the cavern it had left behind, again to climb the next that, magnificently grand, swept on to meet us; the uniformity of the tranquil water, only at intervals disturbed by the breaking of a hollow sea, which, now and then, raising its crest aloft, burst angrily, in a sheet of white and bubbling foam, as though discharging the wrath it could not contain. There is, to mere landsmen such as we were, a sensation of unspeakable delight in thus clearing fence after fence, the opposing obstacles of this green and furrowed, if watery, plain, and pursuing your straight and onward

course, despite the huge walls that successively rise before you, and the loud dash of the boat's bottom against the wave it charges, together with the rapid motion that carries you down after you have overleaped its top, must for ever make the pulse beat quick, the eye flash bright and clear, and a feeling of exciting triumph pervade the whole senses. Who-O! who is there but must sympathise at such moments, with the great poet of the sea, and marvel less at the tone of inspiration that marks his sublime compositions, when he thus comes in contact with the mighty muse that made him write as none could write, but one who felt:

"O, who can tell, save he whose heart hath tried,
And danced in triumph o'er the water's wide,
The exulting sense-
se-the pulse's maddening play,
That thrills the wanderer of that trackless way!"

"Once more upon the waters, yet once more!
And the waves bound beneath me, as a steed
That knows his rider-welcome to the roar !
Swift be their guidance, wheresoe'er it lead,
Though the strain’d mast should quiver as a reed.”

"There mildly dimpling, Ocean's cheek
Reflects the tints of many a peak,
Caught by the laughing tides that lave

These Edens of the Eastern wave!"

But enough of these quotations, which recurring rapidly and haphazard to memory, might be multiplied a hundredfold; but alas! the lines of genius that head this chapter, for ever recur to damp the enthusiasm of the lover of nature by their fatal and too true analogy. Still standing up in my boat as we pulled back to shore, after I had bid a brief but melancholy adieu to my noble, high-minded, but fatally misled friend, I could not help gazing in rapture upon the light white sails of the little cutter, contrasting with the dark and threatening cliffs of Moher, that rose beetling in air, fit barrier to stem the tides that lave their feet, and lash with unending fury their bold broad front, crowning with silvery spray the nodding head that, towering aloft above their reach, confounds their efforts, sets limits to their ravenous inroads, and dares to tell the wide Atlantic, "so far, and no farther, shalt thou go;" and as she ran rapidly before the wind, casting abroad her snowy wings, she seemed like a sea-bird to glide in air. I know nought of the technical and barbarous jargon with which modern writers embarrass the beauties of the great deep; but I can feel with him who tuned his harp

to no human inspiration, that—

"They that go down to the sea in ships, and occupy their business in great waters; these men see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep;"

and can appreciate that fine and graphic description

"Chaque cordage de ces bâtiments se dessine, à l'œil sur le fond bleu et pourpre du ciel de la nuit, comme les fibres d'un squelette gigantesque et décharné, vu du loin à la lueur pâle et immobile des lampes de Westminster ou Saint Denis. Le lendemain, ces squelettes doivent reprendre la vie, étendre des ailes repliées comme nous, et s'envoler ainsi que des oiseaux de l'océan, pour aller se poser sur d'autres rivages."

Whose author under a religious fervour has thrown enough poesy into his prose to make him ten times a poet, were there nothing else; son, worthy of a nation, that is honoured in having given birth to the illustrious author of the "Gènie du Christianisme." Alas! that the infidelity of this nation should be avouched by authority so unimpeachable as that of the gifted and distinguished De Lamartine:

"Et pourquoi ceci? parceque ces hommes portent un uniforme qu'ils appellent,—Français du dix-neuvième siecle.”

What an empty and most shallow reason! O,

"Conclusion most lame and impotent!"