he might, perhaps, give her a specimen of it; but Madame B-r feared nothing, and boldly ventured forth..

It required more courage than people would imagine, to go out at this moment. One of the gales of the autumnal equinox was blowing in full fury, and the whirls of the flags above the throne indicated to Madame B-r that a similar effect would be produced upon her petticoats. On my making the observation to her, she replied that she would hold them down with her hands; and, in fact, we saw her for some time manœuvre so as to preserve things in decent order. The Emperor, occupied with what was passing eighty or a hundred feet below him, continued to walk rapidly up and down the terrace, without, however, passing a certain limit on either side. Madame B-r, who could not see him from the place where she stood, determined to go boldly round to the other side of the barrack, facing the throne. In this undertaking she exposed herself to the fury of the wind, which had increased in violence, and threatened this day of pageantry with a termination not very agreeable to the legionnaires who were to dine under an awning. The Emperor, much vexed, spoke very loud, and in a manner sufficiently energetic to excite in the highest degree the curiosity of a woman capable of appreciating Napoleon; and who must have been desirous of seeing him at a time when he evinced that he was not exempt from the weaknesses of human nature. She forgot the storm, and, as I have already stated, turned the corner of the barrack. At this instant she was struck by a sudden gust, which got into her large bonnet, and loosened the ribbons with which it was fastened. Madame B-r wore a wig, which she felt would follow the bonnet; she therefore let go her petticoats to secure the head-gear; but the wind bent upon having its own way, twirled and twisted about Madame B-r, who, by the bye, was of immense size, and without any ceremony began to lift up her gown and petticoats. It then became necessary for the hands to go to the assistance of the lower extremities. Thus the bonnet abandoned to the caprice of the storm, was carried away, together with the wig, and poor Madame B-r saved the honor of her legs at the expense of her naked scalp, which stood confessed before Napoleon, who at that instant turned round to speak to the Minister of Marine, whom he thought to be close behind him. It must be confessed that such a spectacle was a difficult ordeal for the Emperor's gravity. It was impossible to help laughing at the sight of an immensely fat woman presenting a fat, white, round head, close shaved; her countenance expressing wildness and terror; and her whole body strained by her exertions to keep down her petticoats. The Emperor, however, behaved very well: his smile as he passed her was scarcely perceptible.'

MEDITATION.

'A sweet and melancholy face, that seems
Haunted with earnest thought; the dark midnight

Has given its raven softness to her hair;
And evening, starry eve, half clouds, half light,
Is in the shadowy beauty of her eyes.'

How quietly has night come down,
'Quiet as the sweet sleep she yields!

A purple shadow marks yon town,
A silvery hue the moonlit fields;
And one or two white turrets rise
Glittering beneath the highest ray-
As conscious of the distant skies,

To which they teach and point the way.

The river in the lustre gleams,

Where hang the blossomed shrubs aboveThe flushed and drooping rose, whose dreams Must be of summer and of love.

The pale acacia's fragrant bough
Is heavy with its weight of dew;
And every flower and leaf have now
A sweeter sigh, a deeper hue.

There breathes no song, there stirs no wingMute is the bird, and still the bee;

Only the wind is wandering

Wild Wind, is there no rest for thee?

Oh, wanderer over many flowers.

Have none of them for thee repose? Go sleep amid the lime-tree bowers, Go rest by yon white gelder-rose.

What! restless still? methinks thou art
Fated for aye to bear along
The beating of the poet's heart,

The sorrow of the poet's song.
Or has thy voice before been heard,
The language of another sphere,
And every tone is but a word

Mournful, because forgotten here?

Some memory, or some sympathy,
Is surely in thy murmur brought:
Ah, all in vain the search must be,
To pierce these mysteries of thought!
They say that, hung in ancient halls,
At midnight from the silent lute
A melancholy music falls

From chords which were by daylight mute.

And so the human heart by night
Is touched by some inspired tone,
Harmonious in the deep delight,
By day it knew not was its own.
Those stars upon the clear blue heaven-
Those stars we never see by day-
Have in their hour of beauty given
A deeper influence to their sway—

Felt on the mind and on the soul-
For is it not in such an hour

The spirit spurns the clay's control,
And genius knows its glorious power?—
All that the head may e'er command,
All that the heart can ever feel,
The tuneful lip, the gifted hand,
Such hours inspire, such hours reveal.

The morrow comes with noise and toil.
The meaner cares, the hurried crowd,
The culture of the barren soil.

And gain the only wish avowed:
The loftier vision is gone by-

The hope which then in light had birth, The flushing cheek, the kindling eye, Are with the common things of earth.

Yet all their influence is not gone:
Perchance in that creative time
Some high attraction first was known,
Some aim and energy sublime.
In such an hour doth sculptor know
What shapes within the marble sleep;
His Sun-god lifts the radiant bow,
His Venus rises from the deep.

And imaged on the azure air

The painter marks his shadows riseA face than mortal face more fair

And colors which are of the skies. The hero sees the field his own,

The banners sweep o'er glittering spears, And in the purple and the throne Forgets their cost of blood and tears.

And he who gave to Europe's sight
Her sister world till then unseen,
How long to his inspired night
Familiar must that world have been!
All Genius ever yet combined,
In its first hour could only seem,
And rose embodied in the mind
From some imaginative dream.

O beauty of the midnight skies!
O mystery of each distant star!
O dreaming hours, whose magic lies
In rest and calm, with Day afar!
Thanks for the higher moods that wake
Our thoughtful and immortal part!-
Out on our life, could we not make
A spiritual temple of the heart!

TOM CRINGLE'S LOG.*

For I am as a weed,

Flung from the rock, on ocean's foam to sail,

Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath prevail.'
Third Canto of Childe Harold.

We had to beat up for three days before we could weather the east end of Jamacia, and tearing work we had of it. I had seen bad weather and heavy seas in several quarters of the globe-I had tumbled about under a close-reefed main-topsail and reefed foresail, on the long seas in the Bay of Biscay-I had been kicked about in a seventy-four, off the Cape of Good Hope, as if she had been a cork-I had been hove hither and thither, by the short jumble of the North Sea, about Heligoland, and the shoals lying off the mouth of the Elbe, when everything over head was black as thunder, and all beneath as white as snow-Ï had enjoyed the luxury of being torn in pieces by a north-wester, which compelled us to lie-to for ten days at a stretch, under storın stay-sails, off the coast of Yankee-land, with a clear, deep, cold, blue sky above us, without a cloud, where the sun shone brightly the whole time by day, and a glorious harvest moon by night, as if they were smiling in derision upon our riven and strained ship, as she reeled to and fro like a wounded Titan; at one time buried in the black trough of the sea, at another cast upwards towards the heavens by the throes of the tormented waters, from the troubled bosom of the bounding and roaring ocean, amidst hundreds of miniature rainbows, (ay, rainbows by night as well as by day,) in a hissing storm of white, foaming, seething spray, torn from the curling and rolling bright green crests of the mountainous billows. And I have had more than one narrow squeak for it in the neighborhood of the still vexed Bermoothes,' besides various other small affairs, written in this Boke; but the devil such another tumblification had I ever experienced, not as to danger, for there was none except to our spars and rigging, but as to discomfort, as I did in that short cross, splashing, and boiling sea, off Morant Point. By noon, however, on the second day, having had a slant from the land-wind in the night previous, we got well to windward of the long sandy spit that forms the east end of the island, and were in the act of getting a small pull of the weather braces, before edging away for St. Jago, when the wind fell suddenly, and in half an hour it was stark calm—'una furiosa calma,' as the Spanish sailors quaintly enough call it.

We got rolling tackles up, and the topgallant masts down, and studding sails out of the tops, and lessened the lumber and weight aloft in every way we could think of, but, nevertheless, we continued to roll gunwale under, dipping the main yard-arm into the water, every now and then, and setting everything adrift, below and on deck, that was not bolted down, or otherwise well secured.

When I went down to dinner, the scene was extremely good. Old Yerk, the first lieutenant, was in the chair—one of the boys was jammed at his side, with his claws fastened round the foot of the table, holding a tureen of boiling pease-soup, with lumps of pork swimming in it, which the aforesaid Yerk was bailing forth with great assiduity to his messmates. Hydrostatics were much in vogue-the tendency of fluids to regain their • Continued from page 135.

equilibrium (confound them, they have often in the shape of claret destroyed mine) was beautifully illustrated, as the contents of each carefully balanced soup-plate kept swaying about on the principle of the spirit level. The Doctor was croupier, and as it was a return dinner to the captain, all hands were regularly figged out, the lieutenants, with their epaulets and best coats, and the master, purser, and doctor, all fittingly attired. When I first entered, as I made my obeisance to the captain, I thought I saw an empty seat next him, but the matter of the soup was rather an engrossing concern, and took up my attention, so that I paid no particular regard to the circumstance; however, when we had all discussed the same, and were drinking our first glass of Teneriffe, I raised my eyes to hob and nob with the master, when-ye gods and little fishes-who should they light on, but the merry phiz-merry, alas! no more-of Aaron Bang, Esquire, who, during the soup interlude had slid into the vacant chair unperceived by me.

Why, Mr. Bang, where, in the name of all that is comical-where have you dropped from? Alas! poor Aaron-Aaron, in a rolling sea, was of no kindred to Aaron ashore. His rosy gills were no longer rosy -his round plump face seemed to be covered with parchment from au old bass-druin, cut out from the centre where most bronzed by the drumstick-there was no speculation in his eyes that he did glare withal -and his lips, which were usually firm and open, disclosing his nice teeth in frequent grin, were held together, as if he had been in grievous pain. At length he did venture to open them-and, like the ghost of Hamlet's father, it lifted up its head and did address itself to notion, as it would speak. But they began to quiver, and he once more screwed them together, as if he feared the very exertion of uttering a word or two might unsettle his moniplies.

The master was an odd garrulous small man, who had a certain number of stated jokes, which, so long as they were endured, he unmercifully inflicted on his messmates. I had come in for my share, as a new comer, as well as the rest; but even with me, although I had been but recently appointed, they had already begun to pall and wax wearisome; and blind as the beetle of a body was, he could not help seeing this. So poor Bang, unable to return a shot, sea-sick and crestfallen, offered a target that he could not resist taking aim at. Dinner was half over, and Bang had not eaten anything, wheu, unseasonable as the hour was, the little pot-valiant master, primed with two tumblers of grog, in defiance of the captain's presence, fairly fastened on him, like a remora, and pinned him down with one of his long-winded stories, about Captain David Jones, in the Phantome, during a cruise off Cape Flyaway, having run foul of a whale, and thereby nearly foundered; and that at length having got the monster harpooned and speared, and the devil knows what, but it ended in getting her alongside, when they scuttled the leviathan, and then, wonderful to relate, found a Greenlandman with royal yards crossed in her maw, and the captain and mate in the cabin quarrelling about the reckoning.

What do you think of that, Mr. Bang-as well they might, Mr. Bang -as well they might?' Bang said nothing; but at the moment-whether the said Aaron lent wings to the bird or no, I cannot tell-a goose swimming in apple sauce, which he was, with a most stern countenance, endeavoring to carve, fetched way right over the gunwale of the dish; and taking a whole boat of melted butter with it, splashed across the table during a tremendous roll, that made everything creak and groan