the tail with his hatchet, thereby severing his spine, when a complete paralysis instantly took place, and he lay still; but even an hour after he was disembowelled, he writhed about the deck like an eel.

Speaking of sharks, I must taigle you here with a story, which, how ever lee-like, did actually occur, as the records of the Jamaica Admiralty Court fully prove. But let Dennis Donovan tell it in his own words.

"We were cruising off Cape Tiburoon, to take our chance of any of the French outward-bound that might have preferred to make the passage to Port-au-Prince by the southward of St Domingo. It might have been five in the afternoon,I was a little middy then, and had dined with the captain that day; a fine breezy forenoon we had had of it, -but the devil a thing was there in sight, not even a small white speck of a sail slipping along shore, apparently sailing in the white surf, and standing off full and boldly, as the painters say, from the dark background of bushes on the beach."

“But why take the pains to describe so well what was not there, Dennis ?"

"Never you mind, but let me get along; you can pocket the description, Benjie, and keep it for your

own use.

"I had just swallowed what I had sense enough to know was considered as my last glass of wine, and had come on deck, when looking out to leeward where the setting sun was casting a blinding wake on the blue waters that blazed up in our faces, roasting our skin into the colour of scarlet, I thought I saw a dark object on the very verge of the horizon. From the afternoon having come on thick, this had not been noticed before; but just as I had made the discovery, the look-out man at the masthead hailed, 'a strange sail, abeam of us to leeward.'

"Thank you for nothing,' responded the crusty lieutenant; 'you blind beetle you, is it now you see it? Why, we can see under her topsails from the deck here.'

May be, sir,' answered the man, but the weather has been thick

as buttermilk down to leeward until this moment.'

"All hands make sail,' instantly followed, and in five minutes we ran off the wind, with every rag set that we could spread. A stern chase is proverbially a long chase, and although our friend a-head set nothing as we neared him that he had not abroad before, the next morning broke, and we were still three miles astern of him, Jamaica being in sight to leeward. As the sun rose, the breeze freshened, and before noon we had to hand the royals, and stand by_the_studding-sail haulyards. The fiery sea-breeze that struck us, presently quelled the courage of the chase, for he had to take in his kites also, with the loss of his foretopmast-studding-sail, and as we carried the breeze along with us, we were presently alongside, and I was sent on board in the boat.

"I touched my hat to the master, What brig, if you please?'

66.6

The Stormy Peterel, of, and from St John's, New Brunswick.' "Whither bound?'

"To Kingston, Jamaica, with a cargo of flour and notions, and consigned to Macaa, Walker, and Co.'

"All very pat, thought I-no hesitation here. I will look at your papers, if you please,' and I unceremoniously stepped down the companion ladder, and entered the cabin. The master of the brig followed me, and entering with a good deal of swagger in his bearing, slammed himself down on the locker with his hat on. I was a little nettled at this, and again took a steady look at my gentleman; but to make evident the cause why my suspicions were excited, be it known, that at the time I write of, the good old navigation laws were in full operation, and no American, or other foreign vessel, was allowed to trade with our colonies; every thing imported having to be carried in British bottoms, so that numberless tricks were frequently, when the colonial markets were favourable, put in practice by neutrals to cloak the real character of their vessels, amongst others, that of simulating English papers was very frequent. To return, I looked at our friend

again. He was tall, sallow, and Yankee-looking in hull, spars, and rig, and his accent smelt of peach brandy-strong of the Chesapeake. He was dressed in faded nankeen trowsers, rusty black coat and waistcoat, very threadbare, the coat sleeves scarcely reaching below the elbows, and wore a broad-brimmed white hat, with a rumpled and spraywashed black or rather brown crape twisted round it. He wore no neck cloth, his shirt collar, which was cut very high, being open in front, disclosing his long scraggy red neck, with a lump in his throat as if he had swallowed a grape shot, that had stuck half way down. He wore a large ill-washed frill, that was also open, shewing his sunburnt chest, covered with a fell of shaggy red hair, as thick as a fox cover. His face was burned red by exposure to the sun, the skin peeling off in small pieces like the film of an egg, here and there. His features were very strongly marked and coarse, one side of his mouth drooping more than the other, and from this he kept swabbing the stream of tobacco juice with the back of his hand. He had little fierce grey eyes, the white being much bloodshot, and his nose was long and sharp, as near as might be of the shape and colour of a crab's claw, with a blue peeled point. His forehead was very broad immediately above his eyes, which were shaded by enormous shaggy sandy white eyebrows, like pig's bristles, but it tapered away into a cone at the crown of his head, like the hat in vogue amongst the Roundheads in old Noll's time. He had, in fine, nothing of the sailor whatever in his appearance. He was more like a half-pay Methodist parson. His red whiskers grew in two tufts low down on his jowls and all under his chin, and he kept spitting most abominably, and twitching the right cheek, and quivering the right eyelid, while he looked at you, in a nervous, and to me exceedingly disagreeable manner.

"There be my papers, sir,' said this enticing person, tossing down a parcel of by no means dirty manuscripts. The register especially, as well as the manifest, seemed surprisingly clean and the former, instead of

being carefully enclosed in a tin box, as customary in merchant vessels, was wrapped up in brown paper. I opened the manifest, and glanced at a bundle of copies of bills of lading, called ship's blanks. The cargo answered his description, and the bills of lading seemed to correspond with the manifest. I then lifted the register, and by it perceived that the vessel purported to be two years old, yet the document, in place of being torn and chafed at the foldings, and dirty, greasy, and defaced, was quite sound; and when I opened it, after unfolding the brown paper in which it was wrapped, and threw it on the table, it absolutely and truly opened of itself, and lay flat on the table, as if unused to the rumples and creases, to the no small surprise of Jonathan himself I could perceive, thus seeming to say, ' Take a look at me, Master Donovan, I am worth the perusal, perhaps.'-' Ha, ha,' thought I, 'my fine fellow, the creases in that register are very fresh, I guess-it has not been quite two years folded, or I never saw the Liffey;' but I said never a word aloud, to the apparent great comfort of the skipper, who, I could see, sat on thorns, while I was overhauling the papers-for, thinks I, if he sees into me, he will haul his wind, and not come to an entry at Kingston at all, and on the high seas I cannot touch him; but then, again, as the devil would have it, were we even to decoy him into port, another manof-war may nab him before us. My game, said I to myself, is to lull his suspicions as well as I can; and having done so, I returned to the frigate, and we ran down to Port-Royal together.

"I found that they had caught a shark during my absence, and found a tin case, loaded with a dozen musket balls, with a ship's manifest and register in it, in his maw. This had been placed in the captain's cabin, and I took an immediate opportunity, unheard of any one, of communicating my suspicions that the brig was an American sailing under simulated papers, and recommended that the frigate should stick close and seize him whenever he reported at the fort at Port Royal. He agreed to all my suggestions, and after de

termining that I was to board and seize the vessel before others could have an opportunity of doing so, he ordered in dinner, and laughing, threw the bright white-iron case to me that had been cut out of the maw of the shark.

"I opened it, and, to my surprise, found that, according to the best of my recollection, the manuscript copy of the manifest answered word for word, nail for nail, with the one I had seen, and the measurement of the Yankee brig Alconda was identically the same, out and out, with that of the Stormy Peterel of St John's, New Brunswick.'

་

"I immediately communicated the coincidence to the captain, and he desired me to keep my own council, which both of us did. The vessel was seized, and libelled in the ViceAdmiralty Court, to the great apparent surprise of Captain Shad of the Stormy Peterel, I guess. The day of trial arrived; we were all in court, and so were the crew and captain of the detained vessel. Our counsel learned in the law made his speech, and produced his witnesses. He of the adverse faction replied and produced his, and cross-questioned ours, and pretty considerable perjuries were flying about; and although the suspicion was strong against the Stormy Peterel, still she was on the point of flying away and weathering us all, when the lawyer retained by the merchantman said sneeringly across the table to our advocate,

porting to be "the Stormy Peterel of St John's, New Brunswick"here Jonathan's jaw fell-'is neither more nor less'-the Yankee's eyes seemed like to start from their sockets than the American brig Alconda, off and from New York.'

"Who the hell has 'peached?' screamed the Yankee, looking round fiercely among his own men, and utterly shoved off his balance.

"Silence,' sang out the crier.

"The hand of heaven is in this iniquitous matter, please your honour.' Here he produced the tin box, and took out the Alconda's manifest and register, and confronting them with the simulated documents belonging to the Stormy Peterel, the trick was instantly proved, and the vessel condemned-Jonathan, as he swung out of court, exclaiming, amidst showers of tobacco juice, 'Pretty considerably damned and condemned, and all by a bloody sharkfish. If this ben't, by G-, the most active and unnatural piece of cruelty, may I be physicked all my natural days with hot oil and fish-hooks!""

So far, so true; but Dennis, honest man, superadded a few flourishes of his own, one of which was, that the spine of the shark was extracted, and preserved in the captain's cabin, hung up to the roof; and that one of the quartermasters, "a most religious charackter," could notice certain vibrations and twistings of the vertebræ, whenever any vessel with simulated papers was in the vicinity, even when she could not be seen from the masthead.

SPAIN was in a state of effervescence. Every man was a partisan, and thought himself a politician. Every woman was a philosophe, and thought herself a patriot. The land was glowing with all kinds of enthusiasms-every lip was the source of spontaneous eloquence, and every breast the throne of regenerated virtue. How should I, in the midst of this universal blaze, alone remain chill? Was the cap of prudence to sit upon my head, in the midst of the millions who had flung away the last fragment of the old covering, and denuded the native brains? As I stood in rear of the curtain, whose rising was to develope the new light and life of the land of monks and monarchy, I employed myself in conjecturing what was to be seen in the developement of the wonders at the other side-whether a puppet show, or a Legislative assembly-whether a band of conspirators, cloaked and daggered to the teeth, or a gay bal paré-whether the roasting of a cardinal, or the pit of a theatre. Still a consciousness of unnecessary hazard, a slight rebuke of mind, for the folly or the guilt of venturing into scenes so little congenial with the temperature of my mind a recollection of the gardens of the Conde, the frightful catastrophe which I had witnessed there, and through all, and more than all, the beauty of Catalina, so touching yet so animated, so tender yet so bewitching, came with a succession of lights and shades across my mental vision, that singularly disturbed me. I was on the point of yielding to the impression, and leaving my gallant capitan to make his way, and make my apologies to the fair lady of the mansion, when, as if he had watched my countenance, he suddenly touched a cord, and the curtain flew up. All was astonish

ment.

I had come through the dark and half-ruined streets of the most ruinous quarter of Madrid-I had

plunged into a suit of obscure passages, and traversed half-a-dozen dilapidated halls, where every wind of heaven was at liberty to wander at will, and now, after winding up a long spiral of stairs, that seemed the steps to some mouldering tower of romance, or no unlikely avenue to the cells of some feudal prison, the touch of a finger, and the turn of a spring, had opened to me a palace of enchantment. We stood in what seemed the private box of a small salle d'opéra. The salle was exquisitely decorated; yet with such simplicity, that I might have imagined it built at the moment by a fairy architect. To this hour I cannot define the source of its singular beauty-rich without heaviness, and luxurious without profusion: all the common ornaments of gilding and rose-wreaths were excluded. No gaudy colour, no glaring attempt at the superb, oppressed the eyeall was elegance; and if we might attach the idea to such things, all was feeling. But the figure in the centre was worthy of the shrine. A crowd of persons, habited in the costumes of a fancy ball, sat in niches, or on rows of seats, round this delicious saloon. They had been dancing in some other of the apart ments; but on the signal of the harp touched by the enchantress, who now let her light hands flutter over the strings, every sound of the dance had been hushed, and all the dancers had crowded to hear the señora's sequidilla. She was apparently young, with the brilliant complexion, which is so much more rare than the brilliant eye, in the land of the South. She was evidently a very fine performer on the noble instrument with which she accompanied her song; but all consideration of mere instrumental skill was lost in the effect of her thrilling and delicious voice. I had heard all the masters and mistresses of the art during the years of my Continental sojourn, but, for the first

time, I now heard a minstrel, who made me forget all that belonged to mechanism in the minstrelsy. After the first few minutes, I was perfectly unconscious whether her instrument was wood or wire, silverstringed, or "all of air compact," or whether she touched an instrument at all-so sweet, delicate, and refined was the expression of her song. The words of that song were not unsuited to the fantastic and unchained sweetness of the melody. It was some mingling of story with passion the night soliloquy of some Donna Inez of unhappy love, think ing of the distance between the castle, or the convent, in which she was immured, and her cavalier, some shewy knight of Alcantara, the handsomest of the handsome, and boldest of the bold, who was roving sea and land, toiling through forest, and climbing mountain, in search of an imaginary love, while the true one, the gazer on his image in every star, and the hearer of his voice in every gale, was sinking into her early grave, the victim of undivulged passion at home. The words were in that recitative, which is so harmonious in Spanish lips, prose in aspect, poetry to the thought, and by the simple contrivance of making the same vowels constantly recur,forming an endless chain of wandering, but rich and passionate, thought, which falls on the ear like the murmurs of a distant stream, or a breeze among roses and vines, or the strange sweet sounds of midnight, or any other of those things which best belong to the reveries of nature and love in the country of sunshine, vineyard, orange groves, and the loveliest moonshine that dips hill and dale in silver from the Arctic to the Equator. It was something in this unfettered and figurative style-" When the image of Alonzo smiles upon me, I am no longer unhappy, the world is no longer a desert. All things smile. I hear delicious music in the air. Life is at best a dream; but at those hours it is a dream of joy. *

It is night; all the sounds of earth have died. The worlds above alone shine. The heart alone lives now. The wretched forget their cares, the soldier sleeps on the field, the sailor slumbers on the billow, the prisoner forgets his chain. But love awakes;

VOL. XXXVI, NO. CCXXIV.

one star, solitary, splendid, is stooping above my head. Is it the retreat of beings who have escaped from the agonies of earth? Are spirits reposing there which have wept away life, and now rest where passion fevers the heart no more? Does Alonzo gaze upon it at this hour of silent beauty? In what forest of the western wilderness is he now reclining beneath the palm? Or on what * surge of the mighty Pacific is his bark tossing, while he thinks of Spain?"

She paused for a moment, with the skill of an incomparable actress; first, hung her head, as if overpowered with emotion, then suddenly throwing back the clustering ringlets from a forehead worthy of a Greek statue, her fine eye lighting with sudden inspiration, and her whole form gracefully undulating as if she floated on a sea of delight, the siren launched forth into rapture and harmony. "The rosy dawn, the fragrant breath, the living glow of passion, pass before my mind. Those are the hours when the world disappears. Alonzo has reached his native shore. He rejoices again to hear his native tongue around him. He looks on every hill, and rivulet, and tree of his country, like the pilgrim returned from the holy shrine, to rejoice that his pilgrimage is done, and he shall rest for ever. But he has dearer thoughts, he thinks upon the heart that lies to meet him." Her eye now remained fixed, as if she saw the approaching vision of her lover. Flinging her hand across the harp, which poured out a sudden gush of rich harmonies, and filled the air, and every sense of every listener, with exquisite preparation for the still more powerful influence to come, she sang a few faint notes of delicious and trembling expression, preluding the finale. "He has come. Words were not made for thoughts and times like those. After all his dangers, after all my anguish, after the thousand terrors of a heart bound to him by every hope and feeling of existence, he is here. Now let life do its worst. I am happy beyond the power of misfortune. But he is silent; his cheek is pale, his hand is chill. He gazes on me with an eye of fainting lustre. He presses my hand with a look of despair. He is

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