as beholding a new earth, and a new heaven, with the sea fading from existence1. Sometimes, while gazing upon the ocean, we meditate on the misfortune of Euripides, who lost fifty-six dramas by a shipwreck and sometimes we reflect on the violent storm, which defeated the purposes of Justinian the second. This emperor, remembering that hostilities had been practised against him by the natives of the Bosphorus, sent an army into their country for the purpose of destroying them. Some were slain by the sword; some were thrown into the sea; and a vast number burnt alive. When Justinian heard, however, that his soldiers had spared the children, out of regard to their tender age, such was the excess of his rage, that he ordered them all to be brought to Constantinople, that he might enjoy the superlative delight of seeing them all massacred. Ships were despatched; 73,000 children were forcibly embarked; and they would all, assuredly, have perished by the sword, under the walls of the tyrant's palace, had not a storm arisen, soon after the ships had left the various ports, and drowned them. When this accident was reported to Justinian, he broke out into the most violent expressions of rage, that his thirst for revenge should have been so imperfectly gratified! Sometimes we almost fancy we behold Posthumus, sailing from Britain and from Imogen, keeping the deck ; With glove, or hat, or handkerchief, Still waving as the fits and stirs of his mind Could best express how slow his soul sailed on, How swift his ship! Cymbeline, i. sc. 4. 1 xxi. 1. Then, in the wantonness of our fancy, we see Oberon sitting On a promontory; And near a mermaid on a dolphin's back; Midsummer Night's Dream, ii. sc. 2. A mermaid1 is not a more extraordinary animal than a monkey! Millions of animals, no doubt, exist in the bosom and at the bottom of the sea, which the eye of man has never seen; and which his imagination has not the power to fancy. Even the insects of the Nile would take four men of science 250 years to classify. Mermaids are mentioned by Pliny and Alexander of Alexandria3: and that they have been seen near Mozambique, Mombaza, and Melinda is certain. In the Straits of Bering and near the isles between the two continents of Asia and America, they have also occasionally been seen. Marolla* relates, that Francis de Pavia was one day invited by the Queen of Zinga to fish for them in the lake Aquelindo, on the western coast of Africa. There he saw thirteen and caught one. It had long black hair, and nails upon its fingers. It refused all food, and lived only twenty hours. There was one, also, seen by several persons on the rocks of Derrygima in Errisbeg; after the ebbing of the tide. Mr. Evans of Cleggan, who saw it, describes it5 "as being about the size of a well grown child of ten years of age; as having a bosom prominent as a girl of sixteen; a profusion of long dark brown hair; full dark eyes; hands and arms formed 1 Purchas's Pilgrimes, iii. p. 575. Plin. Nat. Hist. vi. 4 Quart. Rev. xxv. p. 145. VOL. I. 3 Lib. iii.. 5 Galway Advertiser, Sept. 1819. R like the human species; with a slight web connecting the upper part of the fingers, which were frequently employed in throwing back her flowing locks, and running them through her hair. Her movements," Mr. Evans continues," seemed principally directed by the finny extremity. For near an hour she remained in perfect tranquillity in view of upwards of three hundred persons; until a musket was levelled at her, which having flashed in the pan, she immediately dived; and was not afterwards seen." A mermaid is, also, reported to have been seen in Hudson's voyage in latitude 75° 7'; another at Haarlem'; and the supposed hand of another was, for some time, preserved in the cabinet, belonging to the physic garden at Leyden. X. Nature often speaks with most miraculous organ; and sometimes with force even equal to that of the Decalogue. "If I ascend into heaven," says the Hebrew poet, "thou art there; if I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand hold me." Coasting along the rocks of Portugal the imagination listens to the hymn of " Adeste Fideles ;"-along those of Sicily it rests upon the "O Santissima" of the Sicilian mariners;along the shores of the Adriatic, the soul inhales delight from the poems of Petrarch and Tasso; and when gliding along the waters of Palestine, we recal that awful period, when the "earth was without form and void; and when darkness sat upon the face of the deep3." Misson, vol. i. 24. p. Misson, vol. i. p. 18. 3 Gen. i. v. 2. The ocean, a solitude more solemn and awful, than that of mountains, forests, or deserts,-penetrates the soul with a spirit of devotion. Every agitation produces new beauty, or new wonder; the miracles of the firmament are reflected in every wave; in the unceasing restlessness of which we recognise the ever marching progress of time: and, as the waves gradually accumulate at a distance, seeming to collect their strength in their approach to the shore, and fall on the beach in the form of a semicircular cascade, contemplation seems to have the power of producing ambrosial slumbers; and, silently whispering to the imagination, that the soul is of etherial origin and of eternal duration, we seem, for a moment, to be, like Enoch, translated to heaven. Justin Martyr delighted, as he informs us in his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, to meditate on the sea-shore. As he was one day doing so, he was met by a venerable old man, who, entering into discourse with him on the philosophical doctrines of Plato, unfolded to him the superior excellencies of Christianity. This led to his conversion and subsequent martyrdom. Walking, one calm summer's evening, by the seashore, on the coast of Caernarvonshire, meditating on the deity, on nature, and on mankind, Colonna reposed himself on the beach, overhung by the cliffs of Penmaenmawr: and, meditating on many of the events, which had given a colour to his imagination, and a tone to his judgment, he found, after mixing with many orders and descriptions of men, that the following were among the melancholy results of observation and experience.-That wisdom is obliged to be solitary; and that men of delicate feelings, purity of mind, and refinement of humanity, are, for the most part, martyrs to events, they have no force to control. That to speak of things, as they are, and to relate circumstances, as they occur, is beyond the capacity of ninety-five men out of an hundred: for most men blend falsehood with truth so carelessly, or so maliciously, that to separate the one from the other is more difficult, than to divide the tintings of Augustan marble. As a companion to which, we are fated to lament, how large a portion of mankind are credulous enough to believe any thing; envious enough to wish any thing; and malicious enough to say any thing. And that, in this awful suspense of truth, it is a luxury of the highest order to have an enemy of a noble mind; and a prophecy of immortality itself, to be able to walk erect, during a long progress of adversity. For wretched, pre-eminently wretched, are those, who stand, poor and friendless, on the brink of the grave, without the golden consolation, arising from a life of excellent intentions. Years do not always bring experience; and youth, for the most part, is more the season of virtue, than manhood: for, with shame be it spoken,-for one crime which love commits, the desire of fame, of wealth, and of distinction, commits ninety, and an hundred, and a thousand at the end of those. Some men speak truth with as worthless an intention, as others speak falsehood: and while some would be sincere, if it appeared to be their interest; others would be honest, if they dared to be poor. Some lose the world's esteem more by their sentiments, than their actions; others more by their actions than their sentiments: but more than both from their |