at a very early date. In this service no man more thoroughly earned that advancement and reputation which are so hard to be earned. He went regularly and rigorously, we believe, through all the ordinary grades, till he reached the fourth step from the summit of a list which is always long enough to discourage the hardiest aspirant. During this long service he must have lived over strange scenes. Indeed we know very well that he did so, and can only regret that we hear nothing of a memoir appearing which should embody the spirit of these things.

At one time, the Duke of Clarence was under him—as midshipman, we believe.William got greatly attached to his commander too, who, though "rude in speech sometimes, had yet, as the Indian says, a soft heart and a large one. As duke and king, the middy afterwards did all he could for Coffin's promotion, nor was he content to relinquish his society after coming to the throne. It is about three years since William, inviting him to dine, was informed by the admiral that the gout, his great enemy, had wholly disabled him: he was obliged to be trundled about in an easy chair. "Well, then, come with your easy chair," was the royal sailor's response to his old comrade; and go with his easy chair he did. He had long before received a splendid medal on some occasion from his sovereign's hand. This he carried with him on land and sea, and he had it when he was cast adrift on the Atlantic ten years ago or more, by the burning of the "Boston." It was the only article then saved out of all his chattels, but his happiness was complete when it was held up to him on Captain Mackay's deck, while the helpless hero lay there flat on his back.

This we have from a spectator of the scene. Our neighbour Osgood, the artist, was on board the Boston. He describes the fire (lightning in a cotton ship) and the whole scene as terrific. The sea ran mountains high, and it seemed doubtful if a boat could live, yet the admiral never blenched. He was disabled, and his companions were very anxious to save him. Mr. O. says as several were about to go below for that purpose, they encountered the veteran at the head of the cabin stairs. He, having heard of the danger, had ascended thus far, by the assistance of his servant, and with great and painful exertion. A mattrass was laid in the whale boat, which was on the quarter. On this he was placed, with his servant by his side, while a man was stationed at each tackle.

He at the bows seemed well aware of the critical situation in which they were placed; but the man at the stern took out his knife, and when the wave rose to the boat, cut the tackle, so that when the latter rose again, the other end being fast, the boat was half filled with water, and the sailor at the stern thrown

into the deep. By this time the bow-tackle was unhooked, the boat cleared from the side, and the old tar taken, half drowned, from the sea to receive a pretty severe reprimand from the fearless man whom he had so unintentionally immersed in a cold bath.

songs.

Thus this scene went on till all were afloat in boats, three hundred miles from land. One soon died of exhaustion. The rest were on allowance of a third of a biscuit and a gill of water a day. The admiral not only shared all, but he alone kept up the life of the company, giving them every encouragement, and winding up occasionally with one of his best "Oh, my lads," he roared out, at one time, "don't look so eagerly at my old carcase. Here's a young painter will make a much better meal!" Fortunately this lasted but a night and a day. The passengers got into port not long after. The admiral went to the Tremont again, just as if all was not lost. Moreover he sat to the artist, and paid him double price. He also gave Captain Mackay, who rescued the company, a douceur of five hundred dollars and a splendid gold watch.

This is a long story, but it shows the whole man. He was a sailor of the old school. Smollet would have gloried in him, but he was too good for Smollet. With all his little eccentricities, and ill-disciplined as he was, there was a sound sense and sterling Yankee spirit at the bottom, which still kept him erect, and sent him ahead. Yet, to his shrewdness were added a gallantry and generosity that flinched from nothing. His impulses were noble, and he yielded to them. He once commanded a ship when a man was knocked overboard in a gale; his comrades hesitated, but not Coffin; in five minutes he had the fellow on deck again, heels over head, “Ah, you blackguard," he cried, as he shook the water out of his trowsers, "You've cost me a new hat."

At another time he had a fire, suddenly discovered below, which proved to be close to the magazine, and even the old sailors were so frightened that sixty of them swam ashore. The admiral, however, led on the rest to the rescue, and the fire was with great exertions extinguished. As to liberality, his character is well known. We see that he has been publicly thanked as a leading benefactor of the "Naval School." Every body knows that the Coffin School, consisting chiefly of persons of that family, has long been flourishing by his beneficence, at Nantucket, where there are said to be, at least, 500 of the name. The old man loved America best after all. There was nothing like Boston to him. Much more might be added to this gossip, but enough. We hope that some of the admiral's cotemporaries, who are qualified, will let us hear from them. Meanwhile, as we said before, they'll excuse this "volley."

THOUGHTS ON SEEING GHOSTS.

[From "Yankee Notions."]

BELIEVING in ghosts, somebody remarks, is like the the sea-sickness when it first comes

on.

Nobody will confess, but every body has misgivings. I must make myself an exception; for I am willing to confess both ghosts and sea-sickness. Beyond a certain point, however, I am not disposed to place the two phenomena upon an equality, for I am bound to confess that I should prefer seeing twenty ghosts to being sea-sick once. Ghosts, indeed, are favourites with me; and having enjoyed the advantage of seeing a great number, I can speak with some confidence about them. A great many people talk sheer nonsense on the subject; indeed, not one in ten, ever speaks of a ghost in a becoming style. All this has led to many mistaken notions in demonology. The long and the short of it is, that ghosts have been very badly treated by people in general, and if we do not turn over a new leaf, I am under some apprehensions that the whole army of sprites will discontinue their visits, in resentment of these affronts, so that before long, there will not be a ghost to be seen for love, money, or murder. This catastrophe, I grieve to say, seems to be approaching already, for ghosts are not half so common as they were in the days of my grandmother.

Strict justice, however, compels me to say, that the ghosts themselves are somewhat to blame in the matter, their behaviour at times being a little antic and anomalous. There are faults on both sides; which hoping I may remedy, I offer the following suggestions for the consideration of both parties, and let ghosts and ghost-seers lay them to heart.

In the first place, a ghost should never wear a night-cap. Some readers may doubt whether the thing has ever been done; but the fact is unquestionable; ghosts in night-caps have been seen by too many credible persons to allow of any doubt upon this point. I protest, however, against any such head-dress for a member of the Tartarean regions; it is unghostly, and ought to be abandoned. If a ghost has any sense of propriety, let him appear with a bare sconce; it is much more respectable. Some indulgence may perhaps be claimed for a bald ghost, especially considering the coolness of the night air. My great-grandfather, who was a ghost-seer of some talent, used to recommend a wig; but this, I think, would never be endured: ghost in a wig! what an unspiritual costume. No,-wigs will never do. A white handkerchief might serve every purpose, provided it were not tied on, for that would look nightcappish again.

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Secondly, a ghost should never pull a man by the nose. Here again I may be asked, "Have ghosts ever been addicted to nose

pulling?" I am not certain; but the story goes that they have. I pronounce it wrong in toto; it is undignified and improper. If a ghost wishes to give any person so sensible a token of his presence, let him bestow a sound bang upon his noddle: this would be emphatic and decisive; there would be no mistake about it. But as to our noses,-hands off! No ghost that has any regard for his character, will clap his digits to your olfactory projection. This suggests another thought, Ought a ghost to be allowed to take snuff? My aunt Grizzel says, yes, if he can keep from sneezing. On mature consideration, I say no, unless it be the ghost of a tobacconist.

Thirdly, a ghost should be nice in his eating: he should not eat too much, nor of the wrong dishes. Some kinds of victuals are

unfit for a ghost to eat, and sound very oddly when they are mentioned in connexion with a visitor from the invisible world. An old lady of my acquaintance knew a ghost that came one Saturday night into her kitchen and ate half a dozen pigs' trotters and a plate of minced fish. Another drank a quart of sour cider, but was observed to make a horrible wry face at it. These ghosts might plead their appetite, having travelled probably a good distance; but I think they ought to have gone further and fared worse. In fact, I object to eating altogether; but if it must be done, let them help themselves to light food, and by all means join the Temperance Society.

Fourthly, a ghost, when he appears in metamorphosis, should come in a shape befitting the sublimity of his character. I knew a ghost once that came in the shape of a teapot, and another that took the form of a leg of mutton. These are unghostly shapes; for what have legs of mutton and tea-pots to do in the invisible world? My uncle Tim saw one in the shape of a militia colonel: it is a pity that any ghost should ever have made such a fool of himself. A justice of peace once told me that he saw a ghost in the shape of a great jackass; but it was probably nothing more than his own shadow.

Fifthly, there are various points of behaviour in ghosts, to which we may reasonably object. Ghosts may walk or run as fast as they please, but they ought not to cut capers. Some may say it is difficult for them to avoid this, considering how light they are; but that is their affair and not ours. A ghost, I maintain, ought to behave with sobriety, and not play fantastic tricks. My aunt Grizzel for instance, saw a ghost jump over a broomstick, and another grinding coffee: now any body could do these things, therefore a ghost ought not to do them. A ghost was seen once, that jumped over a dining-table, flung three summersets in the air, and made sixteen pirouettes on the tip of his right toe, without putting himself out of breath: I have no doubt this was the ghost of a Frenchman.

Sixthly, besides the rules I have laid down on the subject of night-caps, ghosts ought to be particular in their dress. Some ghosts dress so absurdly that they are not worth looking at when the lights burn blue, as enough such figures may be seen by broad daylight. Ghosts have been known to wear snuff-coloured breeches! and I have even known a ghost in cow-hide boots! In this fit costume for a hobgoblin? Really, such ghosts ought to be taught better. Habiliments like these can never inspire a ghostly dread in any spectator, even in a church-yard by the light of the moon, or when the clock strikes midnight: they are entirely out of keeping. I have heard of a ghost that always came in a new coat, smartly buttoned up, and a spandy clean dickey. This must have been the ghost of a tailor. A tolerably good colour for a ghost is black; pepper-and-salt will hardly do though I should not have much objection to that sort of homespun called thunder-and-lightning. But, after all that can be said in favour of fancy colours, nothing is equal to a white sheet; for, when gracefully thrown on, there is nothing becomes a ghost so well.

Seventhly, ghosts should talk good English, and by all means avoid poetry, for most of the ghost-rhymes current are as bad as any stuff I ever saw in the newspapers. Ghosts ought to maintain a certain tone of loftiness and dignity in their conversation, and not gabble like so many tinkers. What could a ghost be thinking of, who talked in this manner: "Then says the man to the ghost, Who are you?' I'm the ghost of old Slouch, the red-nosed tallow-chandler,' says he. What do you want here?' says the man. I'm only haunting this soap-barrel,' says the ghost. I smell brimstone,' says the man. Merely candle-snuff,' says the ghost. Know of any money buried here?" says the man. 6 Only five shillings in the toe of a stocking,' says the ghost. Well,' says the man, in all my life, I never heard a ghost talk as you do,'" &c., &c. Yet this conversation actually passed as related. My greatgrandmother's second cousin knew the man perfectly well, and he was a person of undoubted veracity. This ghost certainly did not maintain the majesty of his character: and it is a mark of improvement in demonology, that ghosts stand more upon their dignity nowadays.

People who are troubled with ghosts may be anxious to know the best means of laying them, and whether they ought to be sent to the infernal regions, or the Red Sea. On the latter point I may remark that I consider the Red Sea the safest, because, if sent to the first-mentioned place, some people might find themselves under a necessity of renewing acquaintance with them another day. Some ghosts are more difficult to lay than others.

The hardest of all is the ghost of a deputy sheriff. When once a man is haunted by such an apparition, his case is desperate. No sprite or hobgoblin sticks closer to a man than this. He walks by day as well as by night, and his spectral form glides up and down 'change, as well as the church-yard. The phantom stares you in the face at the turning of every corner, and lucky will you be if you feel not the magic influence of his touch, which is able to communicate a more disagreeable shock than a torpedo or a galvanic battery. This spirit can flit through key-holes and under the crack of a door, and if he once taps you on the shoulder, you are fixed by enchantment to the spot.

SELF-IMPORTANCE OF AN AMERICAN

NEGRO.

WHILST there I was joined by George Edward Fitz-Augustus Seaton, a coloured man, who discharged the functions of waiter at the City Hotel. He informed me that he was going to market "for de special object," as he declared of "purchasing wegetables and other animal matter, for de immedate consumption of de establishment." Having nothing better to do, I agreed to accompany George Edward Fitz-Augustus, and we accordingly set off for the market. When we

arrived at that depôt of natural animate and inanimate productions, my companion walked up to the waggon of a fat countryman, and after peering for some time at his stock, inquired "if dose were good taters?"

"Yes, sir," responded the countryman. "A tater," resumed George Edward FitzAugustus, "is inevitably bad, unless it is inwariably good. Dere is no mediocrity in de combination of a tater. De exterior may appear remarkably exemplary and beautisome, while de interior is totally negative. But, sir, if you wends the article upon your own recommendation, knowing you to be a man of probability in your transactions, I without any further circumlocution takes a bushel !"

George Edward now passed to the stall of a dealer in eggs and butter, and taking a quarter dollar from his vest pocket, commenced an inspection of the latter commodity. -"You call dat good butter?" demanded he, with a disagreeable expression upon his countenance, as if an ill flavour suddenly inhaled.

"Yes sir, I do-as good butter as comes to this or any other place." "What you tink 'bout axing for dat butter?"

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Twenty-five cents." "Twenty-five cents?

And do you 'spose for de moment, dat your butter extensifys to such extreme waluation ?-nasty, ransid stuff, churned for de casion!-old butter renovated!" said the indignant George Edward, moving

off; "but dat's de kind of negociation I frequently meets with in dis market!"

THE ABSURDITIES OF IGNORANCE.

AMONG the ridiculous opinions prevailing among the ignorant, though now confined, we trust, to very few, is that if a woman be married without her clothes on, her husband is not liable for her debts. This is as well founded as the belief among a portion of the very ignorant in England, that a husband may sell his wife; that is, it has not, and never had any legal foundation.

On Tuesday evening, a widower applied to an alderman in this county, to marry him to a widow. The alderman, undertaking to act as matrimonial blacksmith, accompanied the applicant to the house where the chains were to be riveted. Introduced to the apartment where he was to officiate, he saw two well dressed and pretty women holding a blanket extended across a corner. Above it were visible a head and shoulders, the latter very fair, and quite guiltless of clothing. As this is the fashion, the alderman was not surprised; but being very polite, and therefore looking down for fear of embarrasing the lady, he saw two little feet peeping from beneath the blanket, as white and as bare as the shoulders above. Thinking that he had got into the wrong apartment at an unseasonable hour, he begged pardon for the supposed intrusion, and beat a retreat. But before he reached the door, the two bride-maids told him to stay, for there was the bride behind the blanket waiting to be married.

More astonished than ever, indeed struck quite in a heap, he requested the bridegroom to explain. Thus appealed to, the swain said that the lady behind the blanket, in the costume of Venus just risen from the sea, or of the Venus de Medici, without the gauze wrapper that some modest people among us put over it when they stick it up in the parlour, was the widow. The widow who ?" inquired the alderman. "The widow that is waiting for me to marry her." "But why does she choose that dress for the occasion ?" asked the

forger of hymeneal manacles. "Her late husband died about 150 dollars in debt, and if she marries again without any clothes on, her new husband is not legally bound to pay the debt. Therefore while she stands behind the blanket, and reaches her hand over, I can stand before it and hold her hand, and you can say the word, and make us one."

The alderman, after a hearty laugh at this learned exposition of the law, told the bridegroom, that if he married the widow even without her skin, the precaution would not save him from his predecessor's debts, but that according to law, he must take her cum onere with all her burdens. Thus advised, the widow Venus went up stairs, put off the

To the above expenses of the Camp Street are to be added 15,000 dollars for rent, and to the St. Charles 30,000 for rent, which makes the former a loser of 13,000 dollars, and the latter minus 15,000 by the operations of the season. The capital invested in the St. Charles is 400,000 dollars, and in the Camp Street 150,000. A brilliant theatrical season, however, is expected this winter by the French and American establishments. Mr. Caldwell says

that hereafter he will admit into his theatres any star on but two conditions, viz: to share the receipts with him or her after the expenses are deducted-500 dollars for the St. Charles and 350 for the Camp Street-and to cut the engagement short if it does not pay the second night. He will also bid for the services of any star a fair price, and run the risk himself, paying the star a stated sum. But he will never admit any star into his theatres on more advantageous terms than he himself can enjoy as the proprietor and manager. This system will put an end to the wanderings in this quarter of pseudo-stars. Still he has said this before, and yet shared with Forrest after 250 dollars.

As a contrast to the above table we may state, that last year at the Park Theatre the stars made but little and the manager less, because he lost money. At the National the following were the statistics:

Income for 43 weeks, average

4,200 dollars weekly

Paid to stars

Weekly expenses, 400 dollars a night:

Dollars.

180,600

154,200

26,400

And this sum went to pay off the 25,000 dollars lost by Wallack, the first season, during which he sustained himself through almost insurmountable difficulties. That he will have a good season this year, we have very little doubt. He has quantity, quality, and variety; Simpson, we fear, has little else than quantity; he has a great number of actors. The Bowery has variety, but neither quality nor quantity; they can get up a spectacle, a fight, a grand humbug, and kick up a row in finer style than any other theatre in the country.

Wallack's nightly expenses last year averaged regularly 400 dollars; he shared last year with Forrest after 250; Forrest frequently Idid not draw over 500; Wallack therefore paid him 125 dollars on such occasions; he therefore lost 25 dollars every night. Forrest formerly asked too exorbitant terms; much

more than he is worth; because in many things he is a very bad actor; this year Mr. Wallack shares with him after 350 dollars.

Mr. Wallack's weekly expenses this season at the present time in the present state of the company are exactly 350 dollars; and therefore as he shares with Mr. Forrest, Kean, Wilson, and Sherriff after these sums, he will get a good recompense for his enterprise and former labours. He deserves it; for he is a spirited manager, an excellent actor, and a good hearted man. He made money at the Surrey Theatre in England, where he crowded the house 10 nights, and drew better than either Dowton, Farren, Mr. and Mrs. Matthews, Mr. and Mrs. Yates, Vandenhoff, Miss Romer, Templeton, H. Philips, Mrs. Glover, and Mrs. Orger, all of whom played there, and made it one of the most popular and respectable theatres in London. We hope therefore that he will play often this season. What a cast we might have some one night in Shakspeare's plays, of Kean, Vandenhoff, J. Wallack, Forrest, and H. Wallack; let us by all means have a brilliant night or two with this galaxy.

The plan of the Philadelphia theatres is to have the stars from this city after they have worn off the novelty of their first debut, and made a short retirement desirable in order to give a zest to their further performance. At Baltimore, Carter, the great lion tamer, as he calls himself, has been playing for some time together with another branch of the prolific and talented Ravel family. Miss Sherriff and her mama, with Wilson and his family, have bent their course to the West, and have, most likely, ere this reached Cincinnati. On their return they will take Upper Canada in their route to this city, where they will be looked for about the end of the ensuing month. Mr. and Mrs. Seguin, and Latham, have gone to Lower Canada, where they have been received with great enthusiasm. So much for the erratic stars, some of whom are anxiously looked for here by their admirers, particularly the beauteous and artless Jane Sherriff, who made many conquests in this city, and her next advent is still anxiously expected, by hundreds, who say:

"The brightness of her cheeks would shame those stars

As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven Would throughout the airy regions stream so bright That birds would sing and think it were not night."

Ere that time, however, we are to have a return of the regular drama at the National, and the Park intends to enter the lists for the crown of victory, in the difficult path of Opera, with Giubelli, Manvers, and Miss Inverarity: they intend to produce the opera Fidelio, which failed in London a short time since, notwithstanding that the lamented Malibran and a first rôle were retained for the occasion.

At the National, Forrest draws fair houses,