visions. The officers drew lots for their respective boats, and the ship's company were stationed to them. The long-boat having been filled full of stores which could not be put below, it became requisite to throw them overboard, as there was no room for them on our very small and crowded decks, over which heavy seas were constantly sweeping. In making these preparations for taking to the boats, it was evident to all, that the longboat was the only one which had the slightest chance of living under the lee of the ship, should she be wrecked, but every officer and man drew his lot with the greatest composure, although two of our boats would have been swamped the instant they were lowered. Yet such was the noble feeling of those around me, that it was evident that had I ordered the boats in question to be manned, their crews would have entered them without a murmur. In the afternoon, on the weather clearing a little, we discovered a low beach all around astern of us, on which the surf was running to an awful height, and it appeared evident that no human powers could save us. At three P.M. the tide had fallen to twenty-two feet, (only six more than we drew,) and the ship having been lifted by a tremendous sea, struck with great violence the whole length of her keel. This we naturally conceived was the forerunner of her total wreck, and we stood in readiness to take the boats, and endeavour to hang under her lee. She continued to strike with sufficient force to have burst any less-fortified vessel, at intervals of a few minutes, whenever an unusually heavy sea passed us. And, as the water was so shallow, these might almost be called breakers rather than waves, for each in passing burst with great force over our gangways, and as every sea topped," our decks were continually, and frequently deeply, flooded. All hands took a little refreshment, for some had scarcely been below for twenty-four hours, and I had not been in bed for three nights. Although few or none of us had any idea that we should survive the gale, we did not think that our comforts should be entirely neglected, and an order was therefore given to the men to put on their best and warmest clothing, to enable them to support life as long as possible. Every man, therefore, brought his bag on deck and dressed himself, and in the fine athletic forms which stood exposed before me, I did not see one muscle quiver, nor the slightest sign of alarm. The officers each secured some useful instrument about them for the purposes of observation, although it was acknowledged by all that not the slightest hope remained. And now that every thing in our power had been done, I called all hands aft, and to a merciful God offered prayers for our preservation. I thanked every one for their excellent conduct, and cautioned them, as we should, in all probability, soon appear before our Maker, to enter His presence as men resigned to their fate. We then all sat down in groups, and, sheltered from the wash of the sea by whatever we could find, many of us endeavoured to obtain a little sleep. Never, perhaps, was witnessed a finer scene than on the deck of my little ship, when all hope of life had left us. Noble

as

as the character of the British sailor is always allowed to be in cases of danger, yet I did not believe it to be possible, that amongst forty-one persons not one repining word should have been uttered. The officers sat about, wherever they could find shelter from the sea, and the men lay down conversing with each other with the most perfect calmness. Each was at peace with his neighbour and all the world, and I am firmly persuaded that the resignation which was then shewn to the will of the Almighty was the means of obtaining his mercy. At about six P.M. the rudder, which had already received some very heavy blows, rose, and broke up the after-lockers, and this was the last severe shock which the ship received. We found by the well that she made no water, and by dark she struck no more. God was merciful to us, and the tide, almost miraculously, fell no lower. At dark, heavy rain fell, but was borne with patience, for it beat down the gale, and brought with it a light air from the northward. At nine P.M. the water had deepened to five fathoms. The ship kept off the ground all night, and our exhausted crew obtained some broken rest.'

While we admire and applaud such a noble display of intrepidity and coolness on the part of Captain Lyon and his companions in the hour of trial, we could have dispensed with the insinuation that a miracle was wrought for their safety; for, can we doubt that precisely the same commotion of winds and waves would have occurred, although the Griper had never been involved in it? Or, are we to countenance the doctrine, that the Deity is constantly arresting or modifying the operation of those general laws which he has impressed on matter and motion for the welfare of the universe, in order to meet the exigences of countless individual and partial cases? Mariners, however, be their moral habits and conduct what they may, are apt to regard themselves as special objects of the protection of Heaven: and it is well if their superstitious cast of mind does not induce the firm belief that whistling at sea presages misfortune; that change of wind may be obtained by throwing an old cask into the sea; and that an indispensable requisite of good luck is a horse-shoe nailed to the mast.

From its memorable anchorage in the "Bay of God's Mercy," the ship was removed on the 2d; and its commander, after persevering for some days longer in a tardy, laborious, and precarious navigation, to avoid foundering in the increasing darkness and tempests, at length, with the concurrence of his officers, resolved to bear up, and retrace his course to England.

The recital of the homeward-passage contains little that can interest the general reader. For some time the com

E 2

passes

passes continued useless; observations were rarely obtained; and very boisterous weather more than once occasioned fresh discomforts and alarms: nor was it till the 2d of October, that the vessel entered again into the open sea, with a fine moderate breeze.

'Never,' exclaims the Captain, have I witnessed a happier set of countenances than were on our deck this night. To have regained once more an open ocean, in a ship in which we had so often been in danger, was of itself sufficient to rejoice at; but when we reflected, that in two particular instances we had been left without the slightest probability of again seeing our country; that when all hope had left us, we had been mercifully preserved, and that now, without the power of beating off a lee-shore, or an anchor to save us, we had run through nine hundred miles of a dangerous navigation, and arrived in safety at the ocean, I may say that our sensations were indescribable. For the first time since the 28th of August, a period of five weeks, I enjoyed a night of uninterrupted repose.'

On the 4th, however, a heavy gale from the southward, with a long swell, and which continued for twelve days, excited fresh anxieties and apprehensions; the decks being constantly flooded, and several articles washed away. Having fallen in with some of the home-bound whale-ships, Captain. Lyon was apprized of the singularly tempestuous weather which they had encountered, and of their general want of success. Proceeding under variable winds, he made the Land's End on the 8th of November, the chronometers, not-. withstanding the tossings which they received, having kept their rates with great accuracy.

In our distressed state,' says he, I determined on running into Portsmouth Harbour, as the tide would serve until two P. M., and the wind was so fresh, that had we lost the flood we could not have remained under sail all night in safety at Spithead. Accordingly, after having shewn our number, and signalized that we had lost all our anchors and cables, we ran into the harbour in a heavy squall, and were soon secured to a threedecker's moorings. Our people were, many of them, much exhausted by their constant exposure to the wash of the sea, and three were immediately sent to the hospital. They soon, however, recovered, and the Griper was paid off on the 13th of December.

Thus ends the journal of our unsuccessful expedition. Before I take leave of my readers, I hope I may be allowed to make a few observations respecting my shipmates, seamen as well as officers; whose conduct on all occasions was such as to entitle them to the warmest praise I can bestow. I may with truth assert, that there never was a happier little community than that assembled on board the Griper. Each succeeding day, and

each

each escape from difficulties, seemed to bind us more strongly together; and I am proud to say, that, during the whole of our voyage, neither punishment, complaint, nor even a dispute of any kind, occurred amongst us.'

Painful and discouraging as this abortive enterprize has proved, it has, nevertheless, contributed some fresh materials to our increasing stock of nautical and physical information; for it has at least revealed several errors of former reckonings, as well as some important facts relative to the phænomena of magnetism, which will be found well detailed by Professor Barlow, in the Appendix. The few plants of which specimens were gathered are arranged and designated by Dr. Hooker of Glasgow, who purposes to describe some of them more particularly in the forthcoming Supplement to Captain Parry's Second Voyage.

ART. VII. Rothelan; a Romance of the English Histories. By the Author of "Annals of the Parish," &c. &c. &c. 3 Vols. 12mo. 17. 1s. Boards. Whittaker. 1824.

To discuss the quality of the " Waverley novels" would be considered by our contemporaries as equivalent to calling their merits in question. The public suffrage has irrepealably stamped their excellence; and it is every where admitted that the author has infused new charms into this interesting department of letters. The palm of public favor is a trophy too noble to be enjoyed without competition; and hence we have numbers of imitative fictions, written, if not exactly in his manner, with a strong effort to approach it. Many of them have come into our hands, and have either been passed over with frigid indifference, or with that faint and qualified praise which resembles censure. It is not thus, however, that we have dealt with the ingenious productions which have successively flowed from the fertile, invention of Mr. Galt, some of which have well merited and received our approbation. Frequently, indeed, his footsteps might be tracked near those of his great prototype. His fictions are occasionally full of original thinking, and show that he has a manner of his own when he trusts to his powers, and takes his subjects from the common store-house of nature. In the diversified landscapes of Gaspar, and the various figures of Nicholas Poussin, the predominating green of the former, and the red of the latter, give them an appropriate air which can never be mistaken: and so it is in these historical fictions, in this family of Scotish novels: nor will Mr. Galt's Rothelan' form an exception to the remark. He is a decided mannerist;

not indeed like Marivaux, from the narrow range of his subjects, and the exclusive working of one or more passions, but in his selection of peculiar persons and situations: in other words, the choice of his characters, and the management of his plots.

We must begin our remarks, however, with a complaint, and strongly protest against the perpetual interposition of the author's own soliloquies, which break the thread of the narration, and distract our attention without rewarding it. We strongly suspect them to have been suggested by the necessity of eking out his matter to the three volumes, the statutable size of a modern novel. Still, after all, he missed his aim; for even the convenient auxiliaries of two blank leaves at the end of every part, and of leaves nearly blank at the end of each chapter, would not all do; his resources failed him; and to fill up the last volume three additional tales are stuck in.

We cheerfully acknowledge, however, that we have been considerably amused with Rothelan,' and are disposed, from the pleasure it has afforded us, to waive sundry objections to egregious instances of bad taste, affectation, and false rhetoric, which were just ready to start from our pen. We will select one only as a sample; and sure we are that Mr. Galt himself will hardly retain his relish for the following simile, when it is again served up to him: The grace and loveliness of the lady had taken possession of his bosom, but the remembrance of her dignity checked the indulgence of his wishes, like the Egyptian gum, which arrests corruption and preserves even the dead in everlasting beauty.' (Vol. i. p. 263.) How a remembrance can be like a gum we are at a loss to conceive; and those who have seen an Egyptian mummy will, we think, be shy in allowing that the dead are preserved in everlasting beauty.'

The story is founded upon one of those romances of real life which sometimes surpass the boldest inventions of fiction, both in singularity of incident and in vicissitude of fortune the celebrated case of Annesley in Ireland, tried in the reign of George II., who having, while yet a child, been sold into slavery in the American plantations, returned, after thirteen years, and recovered his title and estates by an ejectment. - Edmund de Crosby, Lord of Rothelan, fell in the Scotish wars during the minority of Edward III. During a visit to Italy he had married a Florentine lady of high birth, the Lady Albertina, whom he brought with him into England. Sir Amias de Crosby his brother, although he never breathed a doubt of her being the lawful wife of

the