tempted to stamp, upon the white sand inconsiderable a one, which has the beneath, which feels unnaturally firm, better fortune of having a name, beand level, and silent, whenever you ing called the Start. We landed on suddenly leave your noisy and unsteady the small þarren peninsula, which furfooting on the gravelly rampart which nishes a site for the fortress, and has borders it ;-to revel hour after hour an area bearing about as much proporamidst the in-drawing breeze from the tion to the long contracted path, which ocean, which has, for both the sensa- fastens it on to the mainland, as the tion and the imagination, something of crook of a bishop's crosier does to the elemental purity, and of renovating taper shaft; and, on the map of Hants, freshness in it, that is soberly luxu- the ichnography of the whole bears no rious :-this, then, is the sort of sea- unapt resemblance to the shape of that side enjoyment which is the perfection emblem of prelatical authority. We of that kind of delight; and with all have landed on no valuable territory; appliances and means to taste it, I had it is a mere waste of brown pebbles, it, when, as a stripling, I sometimes girdled with a belt of pale grey sand. staid at a little village in the immedi- The castle is a fortification of Harry ate neighbouroood of Hordle Cliff. Let the Eighth's days, though it has been me now endeavour to live over again, remodelled in our times, and since the one day at least, of that season of buoy- date of my visits, by having the cenant spirits, and well-tuned nerves, and tre turned into a martello tower. of ravenous but easily-fed curiosity ; It is chiefly remarkable as having and if I should, perchance, combine been at one time the place of captivity as the occurrences of one day what were of Charles the First-unluckily the belike those of divers, I will not in- alterations made it necessary to demotentionally stray from substantial and lish the room he was confined in ; so intrinsic truth, however I may tread that now the call for local emotion is a little awry, where that which is mere- not so urgently made upon our symly formal and non-essential, comes in- pathies. When I was there, however, to the woof of my narrative. My wish the dark chamber was in being, and is, to go again in a day-dream upon though the shores of the beautiful isle one of my old visits to Hurst Castle. were before the eyes of the royal priThe spot where it lies is a little world's soner, yet was he within such preend of its own, terminating a weari- cincts of actual barrenness and desolasome and narrow spot of heaped-up tion, that it must have weighed heavy gravel of more than two miles in length; on his spirits. The rest of the habita this only road-way to the Castle, has á able world here may be summed up limitless view of the main ocean on in saying, there is a public-house, two the right hand, while, on the left, the light-houses (one a recent erection) water touches it indeed when the tide and they answer to the high one on is up; but, as it ebbs, a vast expanse the down at the Needles, for the jaws of weedy ooze offers itself, spreading of our channel are of no safe approach out towards the channel, which sepaa and there is here an anomalous rates the Isle of Wight from Hamp- structure or two besides, the relics, I shire.

believe, of an abandoned speculation Well then, I am off for Hurst-a in fish-curing. What then is there gloriously bright morning my come for such highly applauded amusepanions, two boys and a girl of my ment? some one may say. Never fearown age, with an elder sister of hers, let us work our way over the heaps of of authority enough, from her farther loosely-piled shingle, down to the tip advance towards womanhood, to keep of ocean," and we shall find matters us in check, without any suspicion on enough to hold us in some sort of ocour part of her wishing to thwart us cupation. Now look seaward is not

this capacious bay worth gazing

upon, 66 It seems a day,

with the Needle Rocks for our Pillars I speak of one from many singled out,

of Hercules at the home extremity, One of those heavenly days that cannot die, and having the far-off, but still daža When forth I sallied."

zling cliffs of Portland, at the other

horn of the crescent? Often on this A boat conveyed us from the ham- coast have I seen those exquisite lines let of Keyhaven, down the winding of Southey verified, often borne witoutlet of a nameless stream, which was ness that they are not extravagantjoined, before we got to Hurst, by as the marine picture has been as bright

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before my eyes as it was before those at leisure, and she will not apparently of Madoc

use much hurry to overtake us. Mean• There was not on that day, a spéck to

while, what are those great black spots stain

that come and go among the waves ? The azure heaven; the blessed sun alone, “ Porpoises, little master," quoth an In unapproachable divinity

old gunner from the Castle, who, in Careered, rejoicing in his fields of light. the dreary lack of boon companions in How beautiful, beneath the bright blue this half isolated place, was glad to sky,

tramp about with our little squadron. The billows heave ! one glowing green ex- “Ay,” said he," and I warrant me,

panse, Save where along the bending line of shore they are after a fine shoal of macka

rel. Such hue is thrown, as when the peacock's neck

This was information indeed ; and Assumes its proudest tint of amethyst,

many little, bright eyes kept sharp Embathed in emerald glory.”

look-out-many too were the questions If it so happens that the atmosphere upon the point which we put to our does not favour you with all this-or self-elected Cicerone, in his formal cut if your fancy is oppressed by the ex- dark blue coat, edged with yellow lace, tent and indefiniteness of the whole and whose grey-haired pate was sursurvey, take some particular object mounted with a knowing cocked hat, for look, there is something on the hori- the glory of that species of head-gear zon, doubtless, a vessel ; watch her had not then departed, as it now seems approach with the spy-glass, for that to have done, irrecoverably and forever. implement is to be found in every

We learnt from bim, that the porpoises one's hand.

would drive in nearer with the state of

the tide ; and truly, by and by, they “A sail, a sail ! a promised prize to hope Her nation ? flag? what says the tele

came so much into the bay, as that we could discern their shining black gib

bous backs, which rose and sunk as Much and boyishly did I use to mar- they rolled forward-much about with vel when my eye, by means of the op- a curve, as I conjecture, like that tic tube, caught view of such a far-off which the hump of a dromedary must object. Peep attentively, do you not describe, when the animal is delibenow distinctly discern that it is a rately advancing in a long swinging ship, shapeleas as it is to the naked gallop. These sea-swine studded the eye? Well now, if you be not a phi- waves by twos and threes for a few losopher, or at least ingrained in nau- moments, and then grovelled deeper. tical experience, you will wonder as I I sigh to say it, but it has been supused to do--for do you not see, ay, posed by naturalists, that these are the plainly see, that she is half immer- dolphins of the ancients, which are alsed in the waves that heave and ways represented in an arched posture toss around her? Her topmasts and and bad enough it is, if all our fine sails are alone visible, and

were she à dreams about them are to end in surmere raft, so little of her lower parts veying the swart chines of a shoal of could scarcely be presented to us, and porpoises. And yet there are worse yet she comes on as gallantly as if all competitors, at least as far as name were right-and so it is. Long was goes; for some men of science aver, it, ere I could quite reconcile myself that the bottle-nosed whale is the verito this practical exemplification of the table classic dolphin. Powers of tasteearth's rotundity ; tand I used to think, ful association, what a blow is aimed with the self-congratulating shudder at you, when we are tied down to think of conscious safety, such as comes over of Arion touching his lyre, as be squatone at the warm fire-side, when sleety ted on the dorsal fin of a bottle-nosed wind hisses and hurtles upon the whale ! While, however, we have been window panes, that at all events I watching the unwieldy gambols of would rather sail in a vessel which these ravenous fish, the vessel has might appear on the surface of the come better within view ; and, as the water, as well as really be upon it, for channel is so narrow between the is. so I was gravely assured that very ship land and us, she must give us more actually was, in spite of all that pera and more opportunity of examining suaded me to the contrary. But we her. She turns out to be a King® will let our new discovered one arrive ship, a small frigate and oh how

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steadily does she cut through the and hollow, with a string at each corcrowding surges every moment lets ner ; and if you open one, you will us see something more of her-at first, find nothing good, bad, or indifferent an hour or two ago, she was a speck within it; they were a puzzle to me on the verge of “ the low wavering then, and I am content that they should sky,"—then she assumed the appear- remain so now ;-then we gathered up ance of a distant tower—the perspec- balls of marine growth, exactly like tive glass annihilated much of the in- the flowers of the guelder rose ; and no terspace, and we made out her sails- wonder we called them sea-foam, since slowly the hull loomed into view-and Cowper, speaking of that shrub, says now, minute after minute makes each

it throws up part of her more clear and evident

into the gloom even to the naked eye-we see how Of neighbouring cypress, or more sober stiffy her sails are bent-we can count

yew, her port-holes on the hither side, and

Its silver globes, light as the foaming surf

Which the wind severs from the broken guess at her rate-we see her pendants

wave.” and the broad union-some dark moveable spots above and below betray that Other valuables here found, were they are the tars who people her—and feathers of aquatic fowl, foreign seeds, anon, as she passes under the walls, we such as cashew and cocoa-nuts, corks, may catch glimpses of the privileged and all matters buoyant enough to supdenizens of the quarter-deck, yea, per- port themselves through a world-wide haps, make out the commander himself, voyage. The pieces of wood that lay the dignified viceroy of this moving here, had, from immersion in sea-waisland. Passive admiration, however, ter, and subsequent exposure to wind will not do for children, if a long and sun, acquired an almost sattiny stretch of it be required—we had pocka lustre. Shells, of course, were obvious ets and baskets which were destined to enough, though none of value or great carry home trophies and proofs of our beauty—though, let me except the devisit to Hurst. Now, there were two licate coat-armour of the sea-urchin, lines of discovery which such searchers too fragile almost to be found unbrofor trifles as we youngsters were might ken; and, as the dandies of the days profitably pursue. One lies high and of chivalry had their cuirasses embossdry, and is upon the gravel, where all ed with precious stones, so does it seem those things are accumulated which as if the echini had theirs studded the winter storms fling up out of the with pearls. The rest of the rubbish reach of the ordinary tides, and which (as some would call it,) consisted of the blast can toss no farther; for here bits of cornelian, and pretty stones, the pebbles begin to be heaped into a and lucky stones, for such we young series of natural terraces, and the trea- things accounted those which had a sures we came hunting for lie at the hole through them. But it is time to foot of not quite the lowermost of go beneath. Now to be a collector on these. They were not exactly of the the lower stratum, was a service of a value of those which Clarence tells us more adventurous cast, for at all times

on the margin of the open sea, there is “ Lie scattered at the bottom of the sea

surf. This day, however, the billows Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of

came landward most deliberately, and pearl,

arrived ashore generally in one long Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels.”

line; there they were poured down in No, ours were of that incidental value

a graceful curve every minute, and the which excites no envy, and there were body of water was instantly shot forenough for all who thought it worth ward over the flat sand, where it spread while to glean them. First, then, we like a fine piece of gauze-work, and secured some of the boat-shaped exuvia then hurried back to be in time for the of the cuttle-fish, snowy white, and next race; and the absorption on the famous among school-boys for scraping sand was so quick, that all was ininto pounce;-next offered themselves,

stantaneously dry. This “ land delittle purse-like things, of which, to bateable” was our field of action, and this day, I know not whether they be it was needful to retreat pretty briskof the animal or vegetable kingdom; ly, while the long-extended wave was their substance is like court sticking- hanging on the turn, or your ankles plaister ; they are square, and bulging, ran the risk of a cooling bath-a cala

cure.

mity which each was on the watch to made us gape and listen, while he entrap the others into suffering—now shook his noddle knowingly, and rcby daring them to stay at a mark not ported half credulously, that “ they always reached by the water--now by do say, that somewhere or other they distracting some witless one's atten- little creatures turn into birds, though tion, when he was confessedly on a I won't swear as how anybody here has spot liable to the incursion of the in

seen such a thing happen.” No hatchvading enemy and many a merrying took place during our notice of laugh chimed in with the dash of the them, so we strayed on to a part where surge, either as it caught a loiterer, or there were some rocky fragments or swept off from his stretched-forth fin- accretions embedded in the sand, on gers the prey he was just going to sea which we saw the sea-anemone, not a

The chief spoils here to be ex- flower, although so like one, but a pected, are sea-weeds in their more re- beautiful living creature, which excent state. Of the minuter sorts, there panded as if it were blossoming, every is considerable variety, and pretty time the pure wave washed over it; enough they are in themselves, but I here, too, were limpets, with their coused to put them to a purpose for nical shells as tenaciously stuck to the which they were not well qualified. stone, as if they were its own natural Many a sheet of letter-paper, and excrescences; closely as they adhered, many a sticky bottle of gum-water, they were not secured against the perdid í lavish upon them in days of severing intrusion of our school-boys' yore-hours were spent in spreading knives, which chiselled them off. Elseout and disentangling with a pin their where the stranded jelly-fish caught filaments of red, or green, or yellow, the eyes, ay, and the fingers too, of or brown-and so far was well enough. the heedless, for not without reason is But I wanted to aid my graphic talents, it also called the sea-nettle-but what and pressed them into the service as says Poet Crabbe about them, as he is trees, which they represented rather delightfully in his element when he vilely, though, to be sure, they were has to write of the sea-shore? kept in countenance while acting in that character, by the houses, and those living jellies which the flesh inflame,

Fierce as a nettle, and from that its name; men, and steeds, which I sketched

Some in huge masses, some that you may around them. Of the larger sorts of

bring sea-ware which lay within our ken, In the small compass of a lady's ring ; all flaccid and dripping, we found some Figured by art divine-there's not a gem of the consistence of Indian-rubber, Wrought by man's art to be compared to having a round flexible stalk, with long evenly cut thongs diverging from Soft, brilliant, tender, through the wave it-(and, by a boy, in a passion, I saw

they glow, it applied as a whip most furiously, And make the moonbeam brighter where but this was not in the present jaunt ;)

they flow. then, too, there was that better known Our perambulation has brought us kind, of the breadth of antiquated rib- within

sight of the public-house again bon, once used for sashes, all puffed --the Mermaid, I fancy, from a figure and wrinkled at the edges, which in- head of some defunct ship over the land folks carry off to hang up as a na- door; but it will bear a question. As the tural hygrometer-and humid enough author of Reginald Dalton has inconall last summer (if summer it might be trovertibly proved, that all great wricalled,) this monitor truly was ! Fain ters bring in somewhere or other the would'I think that England had usu- important topic of eating, I shall not ally a more delicious climate, when I shrink it. The air we had been breathwas wont to bask on the shore near ing, had by no means been of a kind Hurst-but this remark savours of to wear away the keenness of youthful Smellfungus-and, besides, we have appetite; indeed, ourtwists were screwnot run through our list of waifs and ed up tighter than ever. Stop a mostrays. Here, perhaps, a dead star-fish ment, though ; talking of eatables reraised our surprise, more like a bota- minds me that you should look down nical than a zoological product—there at that solitary plant, for Flora keeps drifted in a cocoa-nut shell, covered court soberly and sparingly in this with some fifty barnacles, each some- Arabia Petræa. That dark-coloured thing like the neck and bill of a bird; thing among the flints is now accountwhereupon our old artillery play-mate ed a culinary delicacy; it is no other,

them;

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indeed, than sea-kail in its native bed, But our conjectural romance must and within the memory of man it was not make us lose our noonday meal, first introduced into our gardens by nor a hearty draught, for the sun Curtis, who began the well-known bo- has been potent of late. Most part of tanical publication. At Hurst, how- the regale we brought with us, trustever, long before that time, it was ing to the publican for the more ordiknown and used; they bleach it in nary victual to make the table comthe rudest manner, merely by piling plete, so that a good cold collation, the shingle over the shoots when dis backed by a foaming jug of ale, stood covered. I cannot say that the wild before us. We invited the old gunner sprouts are quite so tender as the cul- to join in this part, (and that not the tivated-stilf let all due respect be worst part,) of the day's enjoyment. shewn to the parent plant—though A girl of the public-house waited on the coast of Sussex furnished Curtis us, and as she did not froth the vewith his first seeds. In this local teran's glass of stingo with the dexteridearth of Flora's bantlings, we ought ty of a true tapster, it drew forth from pot, perhaps, to overlook any-we him a rueful reproach as soon as she have found an esculent vegetable; now was out of hearing, couched in these for a flower, and there really is a terms :-"Ah! now, that girl can't handsome one indigenous on the shore; even give one a draught of ale as she here you see is the Horned Poppy with should. How it makes one miss poor its orange-tawny petals and long sta- Mary!” Poor Mary I had known; she mina, which entitled to its distin- was the daughter of the master of the guishing epithet. I hope the Nereids house, and had been dead, by a lamake much of it, and wreath their mentable accident, about a year or locks with its blossoms; for really this more. As a book, originally belonging flower of ocean's marge, would be more to one of my brothers, had, in some becoming amid their hair than dank sort, contributed to the catastrophe, I sea-weed, which painters and poets drew nearer the old man's knee, and bestow on them for coronals, but which heard with more heed what his kind cannot but have a very slatternly and old heart had to say in praise of her. tattered appearance. Look, moreover, I think her name was Mary Chiddell. at this shrub, and then we will go in; What made my young feelings more this is a curiosity, if the tradition bé especially alive when her fate was detrue, which is annexed to its appear- plored, was this:-A highly respectaance here. It is a Tamarisk, and mine ble officer, who was intimate with my host's garden, you see, has a hedge of father's family, was called into garrison them, all growing very flourishingly; at Hurst Castle, and as there were no they seem to love the arid soil and comfortable apartments for him in the briny atmosphere. Now it is said of fortress, he lodged at the little inn. them, that the first plant of the sort Naturally enough he borrowed some which England saw, was brought hi- books from us to amuse himself with ther, to this very spot where Hurst Cas- in this dreary state of half-exile. This tle was afterwards built, and that the Mary the Maid of the Inn," of importers were warriors returning from course, waited on him to keep his room the Crusades. The trees of themselves in order—she was at that time engaged are pretty trees enough, but ten times to a young carpenter living at Keymore worth notice, if this romantic re- haven, who, no wonder, spent all his port of them be true I have warrant spare time and holidays down at Hurst, for it, which, with many good simple and their marriage was soon looked readers is decisive and final—I have forward to. read it in a printed book! Only think One Sunday afternoon, it was proof a Montacute, or an Umfreville, or a posed that herself, her lover, and her De Argentine, half in earnest, half in brother, should take a sail in a boat sport, sticking in a wand

which he had up to Yarmouth ; and (without leave) gathered in the Holy Land, on the she took one of the officer's borrowed first spot where he landed in his dear books, in order to while away the long England! The twig stands unmolested afternoon of their voyage-a petty liin this sandy haven—the next spring berty, which she perhaps considered it begins to sprout-and ere long it herself half entitled to use, being so displays to the amphibious race, who great a favourite with their guest for occasionally came hither, the foliage her neatness, readiness, industry, and ofeastern climes, nay of Palestine itself. eternal good-humour ; but it was deg

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