When he again told the hour I was safely stowed away in a comfortable berth, not so large as that of Goliah of Gath by some cubits, yet admirably adapted to the sea, which serves most discourteously the children of Somnus, unless they fit their berths like a modern M. D. his sulkey, lulled to sleep by the rattling of cordage, the measured tread of the watch directly over me, the moanings, _et cætera_, of sleepless neighbours, the roaring of the sea, the howling of the wind, and the gurgling and surging of the water, as the ship rushed through it, shaking the waves from her sides, as the lion scatters the dew from his mane, and the musical rippling of the eddies--like a glassichord, rapidly run over by light fingers--curling and singing under the keel.
Shakspeare--Suicide or a 'fowl' deed--A conscientious fable --Fishing smacks--A pretty boy--Old Skipper, Skipper junior, and little Skipper--A young Caliban--An alliterate Man-- Fishermen--Nurseries--Navy--The Way to train up a Child-- Gulf Stream--Humboldt--Crossing the Gulf--Ice-ships--Yellow fields--Flying fish--A game at bowls--Bermuda--A post of observation--Men, dwellings, and women of Bermuda--St. George--English society--Washing decks--Mornings at sea-- Evenings at sea--A Moonlight scene--The ocean on fire--Its phosphorescence--Hypotheses.
"Let's whip these stragglers o'er the seas again," was the gentle oratory of the aspiring Richard, in allusion to the invading Bretagnes.--
"Lash hence these overweening rags of France."
The interpreter of the heart's natural language--Shakspeare, above all men, was endowed with human inspiration. His words come ripe to our lips like the fruit of our own thoughts. We speak them naturally and unconsciously. They drop from us like the unpremeditated language of children--spring forth unbidden--the richest melody of the mind. Strong passion, whether of grief or joy while seeking in the wild excitement of the moment her own words for utterance, unconsciously enunciates _his_, with a natural and irresistible energy. There is scarcely a human thought, great or simple, which Shakspeare has not spoken for his fellow-men, as never man, uninspired, spake; which he has not embodied and clothed with a drapery of language, unsurpassable. So--