brakes fly more merrily; the men bend to the stroke with more of life and energy. It is the kindling up of HOPE.

It lulls, but for a moment only; and again breaks upon us the wild and deafening roar of the elements. They have only retired to gather in greater fury, and now they almost extinguish Hope's flickering spark.

"Clear away the main hatches!" shouts the skipper as he reaches the deck. Like tigers to their prey, rush the men to the hatch bars; and soon bales and boxes are floating to leeward.

Once more it lulls. It is a little longer than the last, and more moderately breaks the gale again. Yet it is as much as our laboring craft can stagger under. Her complaining timbers tell loudly the struggle she contends. It moderates again. All is anxiety, hope, doubt. The danger is imminent. Those fearful lulls, at first so welcome, now so treacherous, are swinging us off and on in the trough of the sea, where, with tremendous lurches, our over-strained vessel plunges her head under the mountain masses of waters, and rises from their embrace deluged with seas, whose incumbent weight seems about to bury her forever.

"Clear away the main-topsail rigging, and get that close reefed main-topsail on her!"

Cheerily fly the men aloft, to the topsail yard; and aw y we are scudding under the close reefed sail. On,

"Like a mad steed,
Urged by its rider

And proud of its speed,"

the brig rushes; now dipping low in the wave; now rising unharmed; flinging the hissing spray from her bow, while the fresh wind strains at her bellied canvas, and the pursuing billows tumble and break majestically under her stern.

The weather continues to moderate. The fore tack is boarded. The reefs are gradually shaken out of the topsails, and, as the force of the wind continues to decrease, the topgallant sails are sheeted home, and the good brig, once more to her course, "walks the water like a thing of life."

SIGNIFIETH WHY THE AUTHOR WROTE THESE MEMOIRS.

ACCORDING to the matter-of-fact and inquisitive nature of man, it is deemed necessary that every phenomenon beginning to exist should have a cause, and hence a motive for the construction of this autobiography is pre-supposed. What this motive may be, remains to be

seen.

Those who embark upon such undertakings as the present, have usually one of four objects in view the amusement or instruction of others their own instructions or amusement. : Whatever influence

the first three of these may have exerted upon the author, his chief motive, object or end, is evidently his own amusement. Man is universally a vain animal, and it is pleasant to look back upon the scenes and actions, the thoughts and feelings, of our past lives, though they may chance to be valueless as the memories of a dream.

"Vivere bis, vita posse priore frui."

A sufficient lapse of time can even annul our personal identity, and enable us to look at " that other me there in the background," as Lamb has it, in the light of something extraneous to ourselves, which we can praise without vanity, and blame without remorse. We can laugh over our follies, we can weep over our sins, and complacently plume ourselves on our superiority to the object of those tears and smiles. With a pleasing confusion we regard ourselves as not ourselves, and examine our own (mental) features as critically as the old man does the portrait of his childish self, praising the rounded chin (it is double now) and the flaxen hair (that has since been brown and then well nigh black, and again gray, and now snow white) and, forgetting the identity, sigh out "such was I once," and if a scholar whisper thoughtfully

"Tempora mutantur et nos in illis mutamur,"

and so dream on. We look upon our lives in the past, as grave matters of history, and by a bold Irishism learn to sympathize with our own feelings. Hence arises the delight of such labors as the present, for what one of the pleasures is comparable to the pleasure of sympathy? Especially are they delightful, when from any cause, such, for instance, as vanity, one is able to find keen enjoyment in the study of the peculiarities and eccentricities of his own nature, and, by some happy faculty of self-appreciation, can find beauties where others discover blemishes, and can cherish as flowers what most would discard as weeds.

66

ces ?"

But," says an impertinent scruple, "what right have you to speak as you do, of this or that one of your quondam friends and acquaintanNot the least in the world, my dear sir, but pray remember this is designed for few eyes save my own, and is little more than thinking on paper. The fault is in the thought, and I cannot help that, if I would. But be this as it may; let it be granted that I am in the wrong; and what then? Why, I entrench myself behind a passage from Goethe's Autobiography and defy attack. "To the man of society," quoth Goethe, "it matters little whether he confer a benefit or an injury, provided he be amused." I trust, Sir Impertinent Scruple, that you are satisfactorily answered.

me.

And so I shall continue to write on as inclination or ennui prompt I may philosophize occasionally, and these pages become sententious, and Mad. de Stael-ish. I may be frivolous frequently; a mirror will be at hand to image my folly. I shall be prosy often, and (as now) a camera obscura will record my dullness. Whether I shall succeed in evoking from their silent tombs, departed recollections, so that they shall stand before me as in life, I know not. If they do not come at the first summons, I shall not delay for them, yet if they arrive behind their time, they shall not for that reason be rejected. Though they take not their due place in the procession, its motley ranks will still open to receive them whensoever or howsoever they may make their appearance. They will be entered in the order of their reception, and referred to their proper position in time.

I shall thus have a history of my life, irregular and rude enough, but

at the same time faithful for reference, and interesting (to myself, at least) in the perusal. I shall thus be able to compare different periods of my life, and thus gather counsel for my conduct in any succeeding emergency that may be similar to a past one. I shall thus drive away care and gain at once knowledge of human nature generally, and my own in particular. Attention, then, you into whose hands this manuscript may chance to fall, and be instructed or amused, for, believe me, the chambers of my heart are somewhat strangely hung with tapestry of by. gone memories.

Being born, it pouts, cries, and breeds teeth.
What is there yet in a son?

He must be fed, be taught to go and speak.

Aye or yet; why might not a man love a calf as well
Or melt in passion o'er a frisking kid, as for a son ?
Methinks a young bacon,

Or a fine smooth little horse-colt

Should move a man as much as doth a son.

For one of these, in very little time

Will grow to some good use; whereas a son
The more he grows in stature and in years,
The more unsquared, unbeveled, he appears,
Reckons his parents among the rank of fools,
Strikes care upon their heads with his mad riots,
Makes them look old before they meet with age,
And this a son!"

The Spanish Tragedy, IV.

HEREIN IS DECLARED THE BIRTH, LINEAGE, AND EARLY CHILDHOOD OF THE AUTHOR, WITH MORAL AND LEARNED REFLECTIONS ON

SUNDRY COLLATERAL POINTS.

I have a great notion of working out my own horoscope. Not that I have on hand a vast surplus fund of astrological lore that I am anxious to invest profitably; not that I am at all a believer in the prognosticating science; not that I have any, the slightest curiosity as to my future state or states, (I say "state or states" to provide for the, by no means impossible, contingency of the truth of the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, and that I may not shock the prejudices of any Pythagorean who may meet with these pages ;) but, solely and simply because I know the precise hour of my nativity, as distinctly stated on that leaf of the family Bible, (Ed. Oxon., A. D. 1765,) which flanked

by two similar ones, at that time unoccupied, on one side, and by one similar one equally unoccupied on the other, may with its supporters be supposed to indicate the number of centuries between the last of the prophets and the first of the evangelists, which they divided. Or, for the number "four" is a significant one, they may be understood as in some sort indicative of the leap-year in which I entered upon this peculiarly comical concurrence of events which men call life, or of the weeks in the month that respectable matron, Mrs. Crone, remained in attendance on my pale parent and my red self. Or, again, looking upon them in their corporate capacity, and with a reference to their position in the gap between law and gospel, we may consider them expressive of the intercalary post which my birth-day occupied, between February and March. From all which, may be partially gathered the fact which, as I before said, was definitely and precisely stated under the head of Births, Deaths, and Marriages-occupying the second line on the page-thus:

JEDEDIAH PARKHURST DOLDRUM WAS BORN FEBRUARY THE 29TH, 1780, AT THREE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING.

And that is why I have a notion of calculating my own horoscope. But to the fact. There is no manner of doubt as to that I was born. Another name was henceforth inscribed on the muster roll of humanity. Another "brief candle" was then lighted, which was to burn brightly or dimly as it might be for a season, and then be snuffed out, and the smoke mingle with the air about it. Another young wayfarer was then started on his travels over his own land, prior to making the grand tour to that

"undiscovered country from whose bourn

No traveler returns."

Or, as Catullus similarly expresses it:

"Illuc, unde negant redire quemquam."

I certainly was born. Susan the maid ran across the street to tell Betsey, the cook at No. 47, that Mrs. Doldrum was mother of a fine boy, (so Susan was pleased to express herself,) and was doing as well as could be expected. Dr. R., who was the family physician, a short man, with a spare form, and a large nose, and a thin face, and a sallow skin, and a cool head, and a warm heart, and a quiet step by the bedside for the patient, and a good joke and a hearty laugh for whoever followed him from the sick room down the stairs, spread the news next morning as he made his calls, that Mrs. Doldrum had presented the Rev. Dr., her husband, with a son and heir. The muffled knocker, and the closed shutters, the hushed voices, and the noiseless step, all said the same thing. So the matter may be considered as settled, and the author may be looked on as born.

The cause of what may seem an over anxiety on the last mentioned point is this. Nothing can exist in nature which did not at some time begin to be. Hence it is needful that the first step should be clearly laid down, and my existence once for all demonstrated. Nor can this