These two officers accordingly rolled it carefully up and placed it in the boat."-JEFFREY.

1. This coolness in the face of the enemy is highly admirable; but it must not be supposed that opportunities for the exercise of such qualities are confined to the naval or military service. Every station in life gives occasion for the display of heroism. The following story, told also by Lord Jeffrey, of Lord Althorp, is not unworthy, I conceive, to rank side by side with this of Collingwood:-"I went to Althorp at ten o'clock to ask whether the Ministry of which he was Premier was dissolved, and had a characteristic scene with that most honest, frank, true and stouthearted of all God's creatures. He had not come down stairs, and I was led up to his dressing-room, where I found him sitting on a stool, in a dark duffle dressing-gown, with his arms (very rough and

hairy) bare above the elbows, and his beard half shaved and half staring through the lather, with a desperate razor in one hand and a great soap-brush in the other. He gave me the loose finger of the brush hand, and with the usual twinkle of his bright eye and radiant smile, he said, 'You need not be anxious about your Scotch Bill for to-night, for I have the pleasure to tell you, we are no longer His Majesty's Ministers."Life of Jeffrey.

2. This is the ship that is now moored off Greenwich, being converted into a floating hospital for " the seamen of all nations."

3. The sailor who, in obedience to Nelson's orders, hoisted this signal, is now (1853) a pensioner in Greenwich Hospital.

THE RETURN OF THE ADMIRAL.

How gallantly, how merrily, we ride along the sea,
The morning is all sunshine, the wind is blowing free;
The billows are all sparkling and bounding in the light,
Like creatures in whose sunny veins the blood is running bright.
All nature knows our triumph-strange birds about us sweep-
Strange things come up to look at us, the masters of the deep:
In our wake like any servant, follows even the bold shark-
Oh, proud must be our Admiral of such a bonny barque.
Oh, proud must be our Admiral, tho' he is pale to-day,
Of twice five hundred iron men, who all his nod obey-
Who have fought for him and conquered—who have won with
sweat and gore,

Nobility, which he shall have, whene'er he touch the shore.
Oh, would I were our Admiral, to order with a word,

To lose a dozen drops of blood and straight rise up a lord—
I'd shout to yon shark there which follows in our lee;
Some day I'll make thee carry me like lightning thro' the sea.
Our Admiral grew paler and paler as we flew ;

Still talked he to his officers, and smiled upon the crew;
And he looked up at the heavens, and he looked down on the sea,
And at last he saw the creature that was following in our lee.
He shook-'twas but an instant-for speedily the pride
Ran crimson to his heart, till all chances he defied:

It threw boldness on his forehead, gave firmness to his breath,
And he looked like some grim warrior new risen up from death.

That night a horrid whisper fell on us where we lay,
And we knew our fine old Admiral was changing into clay,
And we heard the wash of waters, tho' nothing could we see,
But a whistle and a plunge among the billows on our lee.
"Till dawn we watched the body in its dead and ghastly sleep,
And next evening at sunset it was slung into the deep;
And never from that moment, save one shudder thro' the sea,
Saw we or heard the creature that had followed in our lee.
BARRY CORNWALL.

THE life of Nelson, of course, abounds with illustrations of my subject—naval daring, but all are so well known that great difficulty has been experienced in presenting any to the reader with a feature of novelty. One, however, narrated by Colonel Drinkwater Bethune, the historian of "The Siege of Gibraltar," and an eyewitness of what follows, is as well worthy of general fame as some of Nelson's more splendid achievements; and the more so as, on this occasion, that personal affection to his more immediate followers, which in every case secured their devoted attachment to himself, was the inciting cause to a display of that gallantry which, a day or two after, was more conspicuously called forth in the cause of his country, at the battle of Cape St. Vincent,' after which "Nelson's patent bridge for boarding first-rates" (he having boarded one enemy's first-rate from the deck of another) became a boasting by word of the English sailor.

Commodore Nelson, whose broad pendant at that time was hoisted in the Minerve, Captain Cockburn, got under weigh from Gibraltar on the 11th of February 1797, in order to join Sir John Jervis's fleet. The frigate had scarcely cast round from her anchorage, when two of the three Spanish line-of-battle ships in the upper part of Gibraltar Bay were observed also to be in motion. The headmost of the Spanish ships gaining on the frigate, the latter prepared for action, and the Minerve's situation every instant becoming more hazarous, Colonel Drinkwater asked Nelson his opinion as to the probability of an engagement; the hero said he thought it was very possible, as the headmost ship appeared to be a good sailer; but," continued he looking up at the broad pendant, "before the Dons

66

neath the surface, undermining the sides and wearing away the projections, continually alters the position of the centre of gravity; and sometimes the effect of this is to cause the whole gigantic mass to roll over with a thundering crash, making the sea to boil into foam, and causing a swell that is perceptible for miles. When a boat or even a ship is in immediate proximity to an iceberg, in such circumstances, the danger is imminent; but if viewed from a secure distance, the sight is a very interesting one.

Sometimes the effect of the wave's action is to cause a large fragment to fall off, or a crack will extend through the whole mass with a deafening report, or the entire iceberg will fall to pieces, and strew the ocean with the fragments like the remnants of a wreck. Late in the summer they often become very brittle, and then a slight violence is sufficient to rupture them. Seamen avail themselves of the shelter afforded by ice-islands to moor the ship to them in storms, carrying an anchor upon the ice, and inserting the fluke in a hole made for the purpose. In the state just alluded to, such is the brittleness of the substance, that one blow with an axe is sometimes sufficient to cause the immense mass to rend asunder with fearful noise, one part falling one way and another in the opposite, often swallowing up the ill-fated mariner and crushing the gallant bark.

Contact with floating icebergs, when a ship is under sail, is highly dangerous. From the coolness of the air in their immediate neighbourhood, the moisture of the atmosphere is condensed around them, and hence they are often enveloped in fogs so as to be invisible within the length of a few fathoms. A momentary relaxation of vigilance on the part of the mariner may bring the ship's bow on the submerged part of an iceberg, whose sharp needle-like points, hard as a rock, instantly pierce the planking, and perhaps open a fatal leak. Many lamentable shipwrecks have resulted from this cause.

In the long heavy swell, so common in the open sea, the peril of floating-ice is greatly increased, as the huge angular masses are rolled and ground against each other with a force that nothing can resist. These ice-islands are quite distinct in their nature from the field-ice, which so largely overspreads the surface of the sea; and are believed to be entirely of land formation, consisting of fresh water frozen. The process of their formation is interesting the glens and valleys in the islands of Spitzbergen are filled up with solid ice, which has been accumulated for uncounted ages; these are the scources from whence the floating icebergs are supplied. Perhaps as long ago as the creation of man, or at least as the Deluge, these glaciers began in the snows of winter;

the summer sun melted the surface of this snow, and the water, thus produced, sinking down into that which remained, saturated it and increased its density. The ensuing winter froze this into a mass of porous ice, and superadded a fresh surface of

snow.

The same process again going on in summer, of water percolating through the porous crystals, which in its turn was re-frozen, soon changed the lowest stratum into a mass of dense and transparent ice. Centuries of alternate winters and summers have thus produced aggregations of enormous bulk. Scoresby mentions one of eleven miles in length, and four hundred feet in height at the seaward edge, whence it slopes upward and backward till it attains the height of sixteen hundred feet, an inclined plane of smooth unsullied snow, the beauty and magnitude of which render it a very conspicuous landmark on that inhospitable shore.-GossE'S Ocean.'

1. Better omit the to. On what principle?

HOPE, THE SUPPORT OF THE SAILOR.
AUSPICIOUS Hope! in thy sweet garden grow
Wreaths for each toil, a charm for every woe;
Won by their sweets, in Nature's languid hour
The way-worn pilgrim seeks thy summer bower;
There, as the wild bee murmurs on the wing,
What peaceful dreams thy handmaid spirits bring!
What viewless forms the Eolian organ play,

And sweep the furrowed lines of anxious thought away!

Angel of life! thy glittering wings explore
Earth's loneliest bounds, and ocean's wildest shore.
Lo! to the wintry winds the pilot yields

His bark careering o'er unfathomed fields;

Now on Atlantic waves he rides afar,

Where Andes, giant of the western star,

With meteor-standard to the winds unfurled,

Looks from his throne of clouds o'er half the world!

Now far he sweeps, where scarce a summer smiles,
On Behring's rocks, or Greenland's naked isles:
Cold on his midnight watch the breezes blow
From wastes that slumber in eternal snow;
And waft, across the wave's tumultuous roar,
The wolf's long howl from Oonalaska's shore.

Poor child of danger, nursling of the storm,

Sad are the woes that wreck thy manly form!
Rocks, waves, and winds, the shattered bark delay;
Thy heart is sad, thy home is far away.

But Hope can here her moonlight vigils keep,
And sing to charm the spirit of the deep :
Swift as yon streamer lights the starry pole,
Her visions warm the watchman's pensive soul;
His native hills that rise in happier climes,
The grot that heard his song of other times,
His cottage home, his bark of slender sail,
His glassy lake, and broomwood-blossomed vale,
Rush on his thought; he sweeps before the wind,
Treads the loved shore he sighed to leave behind;
Meets at each step a friend's familiar face,
And flies at last to Helen's long embrace;
Wipes from her cheek the rapture-speaking tear,
And clasps, with many a sigh, his children dear
While, long neglected, but at length caressed,
His faithful dog salutes the smiling guest,
Points to the master's eyes, where'er they roam,
His wistful face, and whines a welcome home.

COLUMBUS himself, one of the greatest men that ever lived, if it be grand ideas grandly realized that constitute greatness, while leading the life of a seaman, not only pursued assiduously the studies more particularly relating to his profession, rendering himself the most accomplished geographer and astronomer of his time, but kept up that acquaintance which he had begun at school with the different branches of elegant literature. We are told that he was even wont to amuse himself by the composition of Latin verses. It was at sea, too, that our own Cook acquired for himself those high scientific, and we may even add literary accomplishments, of which he showed himself to be possessed.

The parents of this celebrated navigator were poor peasants, and all the school education he had ever had was a little reading,