MERRIMACK. I. I PURPOSE to write the history of my life, and I will begin with the first event in which I can flatter myself my readers may be interested. I was nine years old, and we lived in Salem, Massachusetts. It was August, and we arose very early one morning to see the Helen Doyle away on a whaling voyage to the southern seas. My father was captain of the Helen; and while he stood on Phillips's Wharf, just ready to sail, my mother, myself and my brother Jesse, with two or three friends, turned the corner of Derby-street, running to take his farewell kiss, and see the good ship under way. We had waited at home, I remember, for a friend to join us, who did not come; and though we almost flew to the wharf, we had only time for a hasty kiss and one or two brief words, before my father was hurried from our embraces, and the -vessel gave her broad sails to the breeze. The hour was very 'beautiful,' as the Salem people say. It was an August morning in a double sense. The pale dawn had deepened to a ruddy glow; the great warm sun was just peering above the water, and the white mist that hid Baker's Island, crowned Marblehead, covered the Juniper, and hung waving on the Beverly woods like a bridal veil, was dissolving in his beams. Three other vessels sailed from the harbor that morning. One was bound for Canton; one for the west coast of Africa; and the other for Brazil. Every sail was hoisted, and as the brave old whaler took the lead, and the others ran after,-one on her right, one on her left, and the other in her wake,-they were a handsome sight to see. The air was finer than usual for that season. The grass glittered as in the dews of June. The city was bright and pleasant. The sounds of waking life were full of animation, and one would have thought we might have been more cheerful than at an hour of natural gloom. And yet our grief was heavy: we could not tell why; but the very sunshine seemed to give us melancholy feelings. The sights of beauty on the water and on the land oppressed our hearts, and filled our eyes again and again with tears. My father made an effort to look cheerful and speak cheering words, and he smiled as long as a smile could be told from a tear, and gave the most joyfulseeming waftures; but it was plain to us that an ominous grief had touched him, and all that cheerfulness was put on to comfort my mother and the children. My mother detected the gloom which my father could not disguise, and she had frequently wept since the day was set for the vessel to sail. It was not all on account of the long voyage, and years of absence (though that |