the ancient bards. Poets were the high priests of the invisible world, and palmed upon the simple minds of the age their own creations for divine realities. But thanks be to Heaven, the mind at length is free. Truth has set her seal upon all the efforts of human genius. The gilding has fallen off the absurdities of old, and superstition, stripped of her tinsel robe, stands alone, palpable and odious. Still, however, does she lurk in the bye-ways and corners of the earth. On the desert of the ocean too, she has a throne, surrounded with peculiar horrors, that shall last, while "they who go down upon the deep in ships," shall have among them so many of the weak and the ignorant. I would by no means put this imputation upon the whole of a class to which our country owes so much of its wealth and honors. Of course, I am speaking of common sailors. And neither would I impute it to them, were I not acquainted with its cause and its remedy. Every one knows a sailor's belief in omens. And many on his catalogue are true, and can be accounted for on natural principles. He understands the signs of the sky perfectly, and can predict the winds and weather in a manner, that, to a novice, is perfectly unaccountable. But he stops not here. He is led on to trust in others for which philosophy has no support, and of which the like would never be dreamed of on land, but by some bed-ridden beldame of eighty. Thus, a whale, throwing up his flukes, brings a storm; a shoal of porpoises at night is accounted unlucky; and I have heard the captain of a New York brig order a cock's head to be wrung off, for crowing at the unseasonable hour of nine at night. These and the like notions being at times unluckily confirmed by striking coincidences, become matters of experience, and stand as high in a seaman's estimation as the signs of the weather. Thus, in the examples above alluded to, it was not six hours after the cock had crowed his unlucky vespers, when it came on to blow the most violent gale that I ever witnessed. The whale had shown his flukes, and the porpoises visited us, on the same evening. This observation of signs and omens, which is the natural result of the solitude of his situation, is a principal cause of the sailor's inclination for the marvellous. He is shut out from all other cares but to know whether his wind is to be fair, and the seas smooth. To ascertain these, his eyes are abroad upon the book of nature, striving to read, in its various leaves, the sky, the stars, the clouds, and waters, the dim, but legible traces of his destiny. And if he is thus enabled to understand things which to other men are a mystery, and was once to himself, is it to be wondered at, if, at times, he thinks his vision can go farther, and there read lessons with which reason and philosophy have no fellowship? Is it to be wondered at, that, shut out from his race, imagination should introduce beings of his own to give animation to the dreadness that broods over the waste of the ocean? I have said that

the creations of the fancy depend mainly on the temperament of the man, and the structure and cultivation of his mind. To the man of well balanced mind solitude has no terrors. He can sit upon a lonely height, and look abroad upon the handy-work of his Maker, with the pleasure of an epicure at a banquet. He can luxuriate upon the means of life and happiness that are afforded to every living creature; or, if the scene lacks inhabitants, his imagination will never call up beings that will defile this beautiful earth. But who are they that tremble at their shadow when alone? Who that shrink in the solitude of the forest as if malignant eyes were fastened on them, and not that eye which watched over their birth, and never slumbers nor sleeps? Who view, in each glancing star, or light from the marsh, presages of evil; and hear, in each sigh of the wind, unheavenly and unearthly voices? Who, but the weak in mind? Who but those whose estrangement from society has nearly obliterated the faint traces of an imperfect education? And who but such men are our common sailors? The book of nature is open to both, but different are the lessons which they read there. To one, it is a sublime source of morals, and its pages are filled with pictures of the beautiful and glorious; to the other, it brings terror, and the heads of monsters meet him whatever leaf he turns. Thus, the same fountain, it would seem, literally sends forth sweet waters and bitter. But it must be told them that nothing bitter flows from that exhaustless reservoir which the God of nature has opened to quench the immortal thirst. It is the corruption of their own palates. Correct these, and they shall know the pleasure which a rational man feels, whenever he views the ocean or the landscape, be it in sunshine or in storm-a pleasure, like a spring to the pilgrim in the desert, and which we must believe to be of that kind that will not cease to flow in upon the soul, in its eternal march towards perfection.

For me, the churchyard has no terrors. I have walked it at all hours and in every different mood. Not that I do not believe in the supernatural. There are accounts recorded of the walking in this world of the tenants of the next, to which I know not what to answer; and, at which, to laugh or sneer, in my opinion, argues as much weakness as to take for gospel every old wife's legend. But I have walked it merely for meditation; and the idea of encountering the spirits of the dead who slumber there, never crossed my mind. If thought of them arose at all, it was but to think of that eternal home to which they have gone, and the voice from the grave was not one of alarm, but of heavenly, though solemn warning. And never while there, have the frightful tales of the nursery obtruded themselves upon me. The dead have nothing to ask at my hands; and the powers of the air, as well as their prince, cannot go beyond the length of that chain with which omnipotence has bound them. By this time I have perhaps raised a smile on the face of some scep

tic, and am set down for as arrant a believer in ghosts and witches as any old woman in Cotton Mather's day, or the venerable historian himself. My creed on the subject, so far as it suited my purpose, I have stated. All tales of the kind are directly in the teeth of reason, and counter to our imaginary laws of the spiritual world; yet still I say, there are some so well attested, that despite of all my philosophy, I dare not gainsay them. And now to our story.

In the capital of one of our New England States, resides captain Sharp. Twenty-five years ago, he commanded a ship in the Russian. trade; but he has long been retired from the sea. It is a most happy life which the seaman leads, when enabled to leave his boisterous profession, and to settle down, for the remainder of his days, upon a competency, in the bosom of his early home. When a squall rises he can lie and hear it; he has no topsail halyards to stand by. Such is the situation of Capt. Sharp. Let me add, that an hour's conversation will convince any one that he is neither an ignorant nor a weak-minded man; and that the patronage of the most eminent merchants in Rhode Island, in early life, and the unqualified esteem of a large circle of friends now, are sufficient testimonials in favor of his probity.

It was in the year 1804 that Capt. Sharp returned from a European voyage. The gentleman in whose family I reside, and whom I have known and respected for years, was then living at Pawtuxet, on the Narraganset Bay. He saw the ship pass up the bay, and on the day following called upon the Captain at Providence. The Captain received him with a warm greeting.

"I am glad to see you," said he ; " I am glad to see every body— in a word, I rejoice that I am once more safe upon the terra firma of Rhode Island."

"Rather unnatural for a seaman, that last expression," observed Mr. T—.

"By no means-by no means;" said the Captain, "the most inveterate sea dog of us all, would be glad to be set on shore after such a voyage."

"Anything extraordinary ?" inquired Mr. T—.

"Extraordinary? Yes-no-we have had seamen's luck, fair winds and foul, but, on the whole, a pretty fair run; yet," said he, dropping his voice, "I would not make exactly another such a voyage, for the best ship that sails out of Providence."

"You talk mysteriously," said Mr. T—.

"I do;" said the Captain; " and the mischief of it is, I must still talk mysteries if I endeavor to explain myself. As we are alone, however, you shall hear, if you have time to listen."

After a moment's pause he proceeded. "What I have to say, shall be, without note or comment, a simple tale of facts. An opinion

upon those facts, of course, I have; but there is no necessity of my publishing it; I shall therefore merely tell my story, and leave you and every one who may hear it hereafter, to put upon it what interpretation they please. We were bound, you will recollect, for St. Petersburgh. The ship was in the stream, all ready for sea, excepting that we lacked a hand. In those days, before the embargo and non-intercourse, when we were reaping golden harvests on the sea while Europe was fighting, it was at times difficult to get experienced seamen. After I had waited a whole day, a short, white-livered fellow presented himself, and though I did not like his looks, I conIcluded to ship him. I love to see a man who will occasionally give me a full, square look in the face. If there is sometimes impudence in it there generally is honesty. There was not a man on board the Charlotte, who could say that he ever caught Michael Dodd's eye long enough to tell its colour. Though his frame was large, he was lean almost to emaciation, and pale, as I said before, like one in a consumption. Altogether, with his unsocial habits, hanging look, and strange mark on his right arm, that looked as if it were done with blood instead of India ink or gunpowder, he was a confounded disagreeable fellow. On the outward bound voyage, however, he did his duty tolerably well, though he was never known to give a right seaman's pull, nor to join in that most cheering of songs, Yoheave-ho! There seemed, in fact, to be something tugging heavily at his heart, whether remorse or sorrow we could not divine. There were times too when he would take no food, and refuse it when offered, more with the speechless loathing of a sick dog than like a rational creature. We soon, however, became accustomed to his ways, and as he held intercourse with no one farther than his duty made it necessary, none knew any more about him when we reached Cronstadt, than when we shipped him, and thought less.

6

We were advanced more than fifteen hundred miles on the homeward bound passage, when one morning, as I was passing forward, I overheard the following conversation. 'I wish to my soul,' said Jones, one of our best men, to Dodd, who was leaning over the vessel's side and gazing at the water, in a kind of trance, "I wish to my soul, brother, you would manage to do your talking upon deck, and let the watch below have a chance to sleep, instead of doing double duty. For one, I had as lief be keel.hauled as to be broke of my natural rest in this way."

Dodd turned upon him with a gleam of uncommon fierceness, but the expression passed away in a moment, and with a melancholy air he resumed his former position.

"I shall not trouble you long," he said, in a quiet tone.

"The shorter the better, my dear fellow," said the other, "if you are to carry your tongue between your teeth all day, like a pin

in a smith's vice, and then talk to yourself, or, may be, the devil, all night."

Dodd answered not, but with folded arms and a drooped head, moved quietly by the irritated young seaman, into the forecastle.

I bade Jones follow me aft. "And now," said I, "what is the matter between you and Dodd?”

"It is even as I say, sir," replied he. "Since we got clear of the British islands, there has been no sleeping for Dodd ?" "Explain,” said I.

"Why sir, you know, that when upon deck, he has not a word to throw to a dog; but below, and when he ought to be asleep, his mouth is afloat."

"You are not obliged to talk to him."

"Lord sir, if he was talking to us, we should care less about it. But there he lies in his birth, and mutters and groans like a man in a fit of the nightmare. Then he will thrash round and halloo, "They are coming!" "They are coming!" "There!" "There!" And this has been the tune for a week. "Tis very troublesome," said Jones very decidedly; "for if he has a mind to hold conversation with the devil, I, for one, don't want to listen to it."

"Conversation with the devil?"

"Aye, sir; with whom else should a fellow, who carries Lucifer's mark in his forehead as well as on his right arm, hold converse when honest folks would be sleeping? And the moment any of us ask what ails him, or mayhap give him a hearty curse, mum-not a word from Dodd; but no sooner are we cleverly asleep, than his eternal howl breaks in again, and 'tis "They are coming!" "They are coming!" and "There !" and "There!" till the morning watch." "The fellow has bad dreams," said I.

"A man don't have the same dream seven nights in a week for nothing;" said Jones. "He is enough to make us all think we are haunted."

I confess I was puzzled, and not a little appalled at this account. I knew not what to say, so bade Jones go to his duty. The next morning the same report was made by Jones and confirmed by all the men of his watch; some of whom feared and all hated the singular being whose existence was now become a others as well as to himself. I had remarked that his look had become more haggard : his eye had almost entirely disappeared in its deep socket, and his whole deportment was strange in the extreme. Things grew so bad at last that I was fearful some of the men might do Dodd a mischief; for they were all goaded to madness, some by loss of rest, and others by the supernatural fears which his ravings excited. I determined therefore to take him out of the forecastle. Three days after my first conversation with Jones, I ordered Dodd

VOL. I.-NO. V.

40

H