THE CAPTAIN;

OR, THE

LIFE OF A NAVAL OFFICER.

Their preparation is to-day by sea;

We please them not by land.

SHAKSPEARE.

THE CAPTAIN,

&c.

CHAPTER I.

One man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages.

SHAKSPEARE.

WHO ever wrote a book without many doubts and scruples as to the manner of its commencement ? Let us see: Adam was the only man not pestered about parents and pedigree; but as our hero's name is not Adam but Morland,—an appellation doubtlessly of avaricious origin, and preserved through a long line of modern accomplishments,—it will be essential, we take it, to run him through the

usual ordeal of birth, parentage, and educa

tion.

Morland Dunstanville was born shortly after the commencement of the first American War. He was the second son of a fashionable couple, whose extravagance soon sequestered the family estate, under the influence of a sleek, comfortable attorney, living by ways and means in Lincoln's Inn; while the health of his mother, by a continued routine of dissipation, was brought under the care of an equitable country physician, who usually visited his fair patient at the hour of six, and who loved peaches, port, pines, and politics, in which he was freely gratified by the generous husband, till real and imaginary ailments brought his lovely partner to an early grave.

Mr. Dunstanville, thus left in the world with his two boys, amidst difficulties accumulated by his own folly, and increased by the unlimited indulgence of his beautiful but thoughtless wife, had little solace to hope for among those