"There was not on that day, a speck to stain

The azure heaven; the blessed sun alone,
In unapproachable divinity
Careered, rejoicing in his fields of light.
How beautiful, beneath the bright blue
sky,

The billows heave! one glowing green expanse,

Save where along the bending line of shore Such hue is thrown, as when the peacock's

neck Assumes its proudest tint of amethyst, Embathed in emerald glory."

If it so happens that the atmosphere does not favour you with all this-or if your fancy is oppressed by the extent and indefiniteness of the whole survey, take some particular objectlook, there is something on the horizon, doubtless, a vessel; watch her approach with the spy-glass, for that implement is to be found in every one's hand.

"A sail, a sail! a promised prize to hopeHer nation? flag? what says the telescope ?"

Much and boyishly did I use to marvel when my eye, by means of the optic tube, caught view of such a far-off object. Peep attentively, do you not now distinctly discern that it is a ship, shapeless as it is to the naked eye? Well now, if you be not a philosopher, or at least ingrained in nautical experience, you will wonder as I used to do-for do you not see, ay, plainly see, that she is half immersed in the waves that heave and toss around her? Her topmasts and sails are alone visible, and were she a mere raft, so little of her lower parts could scarcely be presented to us; and yet she comes on as gallantly as if all were right-and so it is. Long was it, ere I could quite reconcile myself to this practical exemplification of the earth's rotundity; and I used to think, with the self-congratulating shudder of conscious safety, such as comes over one at the warm fire-side, when sleety wind hisses and hurtles upon the window panes, that at all events I would rather sail in a vessel which might appear on the surface of the water, as well as really be upon it, for so I was gravely assured that very ship actually was, in spite of all that persuaded me to the contrary. But we will let our new discovered one arrive

1

at leisure, and she will not apparently use much hurry to overtake us. Meanwhile, what are those great black spots that come and go among the waves? "Porpoises, little master," quoth an old gunner from the Castle, who, in the dreary lack of boon companions in this half isolated place, was glad to tramp about with our little squadron. "Ay," said he, " and I warrant me, they are after a fine shoal of mackarel."

This was information indeed; and many little, bright eyes kept sharp look-out-many too were the questions upon the point which we put to our self-elected Cicerone, in his formal cut dark blue coat, edged with yellow lace, and whose grey-haired pate was surmounted with a knowing cocked hat, for the glory of that species of head-gear had not then departed, as it now seems to have done, irrecoverably and for ever. We learnt from him, that the porpoises would drive in nearer with the state of the tide; and truly, by and by, they came so much into the bay, as that we could discern their shining black gibbous backs, which rose and sunk as they rolled forward-much about with a curve, as I conjecture, like that which the hump of a dromedary must describe, when the animal is deliberately advancing in a long swinging gallop. These sea-swine studded the waves by twos and threes for a few moments, and then grovelled deeper. I sigh to say it, but it has been supposed by naturalists, that these are the dolphins of the ancients, which are always represented in an arched posture -and bad enough it is, if all our fine dreams about them are to end in surveying the swart chines of a shoal of porpoises. And yet there are worse competitors, at least as far as name goes; for some men of science aver, that the bottle-nosed whale is the veritable classic dolphin. Powers of tasteful association, what a blow is aimed at you, when we are tied down to think of Arion touching his lyre, as he squatted on the dorsal fin of a bottle-nosed whale! While, however, we have been watching the unwieldy gambols of these ravenous fish, the vessel has come better within view; and, as the channel is so narrow between the island and us, she must give us more and more opportunity of examining her. She turns out to be a King's ship, a small frigate and oh how

steadily does she cut through the crowding surges every moment lets us see something more of her-at first, an hour or two ago, she was a speck on the verge of "the low wavering sky,"-then she assumed the appearance of a distant tower-the perspective glass annihilated much of the interspace, and we made out her sails slowly the hull loomed into view-and now, minute after minute makes each part of her more clear and evident even to the naked eye-we see how stiffly her sails are bent-we can count her port-holes on the hither side, and guess at her rate-we see her pendants and the broad union-some dark moveable spots above and below betray that they are the tars who people her-and anon, as she passes under the walls, we may catch glimpses of the privileged denizens of the quarter-deck, yea, perhaps, make out the commander himself, the dignified viceroy of this moving island. Passive admiration, however, will not do for children, if a long stretch of it be required-we had pockets and baskets which were destined to carry home trophies and proofs of our visit to Hurst. Now, there were two lines of discovery which such searchers for trifles as we youngsters were might profitably pursue. One lies high and dry, and is upon the gravel, where all those things are accumulated which the winter storms fling up out of the reach of the ordinary tides, and which the blast can toss no farther; for here the pebbles begin to be heaped into a series of natural terraces, and the treasures we came hunting for lie at the foot of not quite the lowermost of these. They were not exactly of the value of those which Clarence tells us

"Lie scattered at the bottom of the sea

Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,

Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels.”— No, ours were of that incidental value which excites no envy, and there were enough for all who thought it worth while to glean them. First, then, we secured some of the boat-shaped exuvia of the cuttle-fish, snowy white, and famous among school-boys for scraping into pounce;-next offered themselves, little purse-like things, of which, to this day, I know not whether they be of the animal or vegetable kingdom; their substance is like court sticking plaister; they are square, and bulging,

and hollow, with a string at each corner; and if you open one, you will find nothing good, bad, or indifferent within it; they were a puzzle to me then, and I am content that they should remain so now ;-then we gathered up balls of marine growth, exactly like the flowers of the guelder rose ; and no wonder we called them sea-foam, since Cowper, speaking of that shrub, says it throws up << into the gloom

Of neighbouring cypress, or more sober

Other valuables here found, were feathers of aquatic fowl, foreign seeds, such as cashew and cocoa-nuts, corks, and all matters buoyant enough to support themselves through a world-wide voyage. The pieces of wood that lay here, had, from immersion in sea-water, and subsequent exposure to wind and sun, acquired an almost sattiny lustre. Shells, of course, were obvious enough, though none of value or great beauty-though, let me except the delicate coat-armour of the sea-urchin, too fragile almost to be found unbroken; and, as the dandies of the days of chivalry had their cuirasses embossed with precious stones, so does it seem as if the echini had theirs studded with pearls. The rest of the rubbish (as some would call it,) consisted of bits of cornelian, and pretty stones, and lucky stones, for such we young things accounted those which had a hole through them. But it is time to go beneath. Now to be a collector on the lower stratum, was a service of a more adventurous cast, for at all times on the margin of the open sea, there is surf. This day, however, the billows came landward most deliberately, and arrived ashore generally in one long line; there they were poured down in a graceful curve every minute, and the body of water was instantly shot forward over the flat sand, where it spread like a fine piece of gauze-work, and then hurried back to be in time for the next race; and the absorption on the sand was so quick, that all was instantaneously dry. This "land debateable" was our field of action, and it was needful to retreat pretty briskly, while the long-extended wave was hanging on the turn, or your ankles ran the risk of a cooling bath—a cala

mity which each was on the watch to entrap the others into suffering-now by daring them to stay at a mark not always reached by the water-now by distracting some witless one's attention, when he was confessedly on a spot liable to the incursion of the invading enemy-and many a merry laugh chimed in with the dash of the surge, either as it caught a loiterer, or swept off from his stretched-forth fingers the prey he was just going to secure. The chief spoils here to be expected, are sea-weeds in their more recent state. Of the minuter sorts, there is considerable variety, and pretty enough they are in themselves, but I used to put them to a purpose for which they were not well qualified. Many a sheet of letter-paper, and many a sticky bottle of gum-water, did I lavish upon them in days of yore-hours were spent in spreading out and disentangling with a pin their filaments of red, or green, or yellow, or brown-and so far was well enough. But I wanted to aid my graphic talents, and pressed them into the service as trees, which they represented rather vilely, though, to be sure, they were kept in countenance while acting in that character, by the houses, and men, and steeds, which I sketched around them. Of the larger sorts of sea-ware which lay within our ken, all flaccid and dripping, we found some of the consistence of Indian-rubber, having a round flexible stalk, with long evenly cut thongs diverging from it-(and, by a boy, in a passion, I saw it applied as a whip most furiously, but this was not in the present jaunt ;) then, too, there was that better known kind, of the breadth of antiquated ribbon, once used for sashes, all puffed and wrinkled at the edges, which inland folks carry off to hang up as a natural hygrometer-and humid enough all last summer (if summer it might be called,) this monitor truly was! Fain would I think that England had usually a more delicious climate, when I was wont to bask on the shore near Hurst-but this remark savours of Smellfungus-and, besides, we have not run through our list of waifs and strays. Here, perhaps, a dead star-fish raised our surprise, more like a botanical than a zoological product-there drifted in a cocoa-nut shell, covered with some fifty barnacles, each something like the neck and bill of a bird; whereupon our old artillery play-mate

made us gape and listen, while he shook his noddle knowingly, and reported half credulously, that "they do say, that somewhere or other they little creatures turn into birds, though I won't swear as how anybody here has seen such a thing happen." No hatching took place during our notice of them, so we strayed on to a part where there were some rocky fragments or accretions embedded in the sand, on which we saw the sea-anemone, not a flower, although so like one, but a beautiful living creature, which expanded as if it were blossoming, every time the pure wave washed over it ;here, too, were limpets, with their conical shells as tenaciously stuck to the stone, as if they were its own natural excrescences; closely as they adhered, they were not secured against the persevering intrusion of our school-boys' knives, which chiselled them off. Elsewhere the stranded jelly-fish caught the eyes, ay, and the fingers too, of the heedless, for not without reason is it also called the sea-nettle-but what says Poet Crabbe about them, as he is delightfully in his element when he has has to write of the sea-shore?

Those living jellies which the flesh inflame, Fierce as a nettle, and from that its name; Some in huge masses, some that you may

bring

In the small compass of a lady's ring; Figured by art divine there's not a gem Wrought by man's art to be compared to

them;

Our perambulation has brought us within sight of the public-house again -the Mermaid, I fancy, from a figure head of some defunct ship over the door; but it will bear a question. As the author of Reginald Dalton has incontrovertibly proved, that all great writers bring in somewhere or other the important topic of eating, I shall not shrink it. The air we had been breathing, had by no means been of a kind to wear away the keenness of youthful appetite; indeed, our twists were screwed up tighter than ever. Stop a moment, though; talking of eatables reminds me that you should look down at that solitary plant, for Flora keeps court soberly and sparingly in this Arabia Petræa. That dark-coloured thing among the flints is now accounted a culinary delicacy; it is no other,