the deck, a few feet from him, and a little raised, so as to have a good swing at him, and held in his hand the bight of a thick, strong rope. The officers stood round, and the crew grouped together in the waist. All these preparations made me feel sick and almost faint, angry and excited as I was. A man — a human being, made in God's likeness-fastened up and flogged like a beast! A man, too, whom I had lived with and eaten with for months, and knew almost as well as a brother. The first and almost uncontrollable impulse was resistance. But what was to be done? The time for it had gone by. The two best men were fast, and there were only two beside myself, and a small boy of ten or twelve years of age. And then there were (beside the captain) three officers, steward, agent, and clerk. But beside the numbers, what is there for sailors to do? If they resist, it is mutiny; and if they succeed, and take the vessel, it is piracy. If they ever yield again, their punishment must come; and if they do not yield, they are pirates for life. If a sailor resist his commander, he resists the law, and piracy or submission are his only alternatives. Bad as it was, it must be borne. It is what a sailor ships for. Swinging the rope over his bead, and bending his body so as to give it full force, the captain brought it down upon the poor fellow's back. Once, twice-six times. Will you ever give me any more of your jaw ? The man writhed with pain, but said not a word. Three times more. This was too much, and he muttered something which I could not hear; this brought as many more as the man could stand; when the captain ordered him to be cut down, and to go forward.

Now for you,' said the captain, making up to John, and taking his irons off. As soon as he was loose, he ran forward to the forecastle. Bring that man aft,' shouted the captain. The second mate, who had been a shipmate of John's, stood still in the waist, and the mate walked slowly forward; but our third officer, anxious to show ins zeal, sprang forward over the windlass, and laid hold of John; but he soon threw him from him. At this moment I would have given worlds for the power to help the poor fellow; but it was all in vain. The captain stood on the quarter-deck, bareheaded, his eyes flashing with rage, and his face as red as blood, swinging the rope, and calling out to his officers, Drag him aft!- Lay hold of him! I'll sweeten him!' etc., etc. The mate now went forward and told John quietly to go aft; and he, seeing resistance in vain, threw the blackguard third mate from him; said he would go aft of himself; that they should not drag him; and went up to the gaugway and held out his hands; but as soon as the captain began to make him fast, the indiguity was too much, and he began to resist; but the mate and Russell holding him, he was soon seized up. When he was made fast, he turned to the captain, who stood turning up his sleeves and getting ready for the blow, and asked him what he was to be flogged for. Have lever refused my duty, Sir? Have you ever known me to hang back, or to be insolent, or not to know my work?" "No,' said the captain, it is not that that I flog you for; I flog you for your interference — for asking questions.'"

Can't a man ask a question here without being flogged?"

"No!' shouted the captain; nobody shall open his mouth aboard this vessel, but myself;' and he began laying the blows upon his back, swinging half round between each blow, to give it full effect. As he went on, his passion increased, and he danced about the deck, calling out as he swung the rope: If you want to know what I flog you for, I'll tell you. It's because I like to do it! because I like to do it! It suits me! That's what I do it for!'"

The man writhed under the pain, until he could endure it no longer, when he called out, with an exclamation more common to foreigners than with us: 'Oh, Jesus Christ! Oh, Jesus Christ!" "Don't call on Jesus Christ!' shouted the captain; he can't help you. Call on Captain T—. He's the man! He can help you! Jesus Christ can't help you now!"

"At these words, which I never shall forget, my blood rau cold. I could look on no longer. Disgusted, sick, and horror-struck, I turned away, and leaned over the rail, and looked down into the water. A few rapid thoughts of my own situation, and the prospect of future revenge, crossed my mind; but the falling of the blows and the cries of the man called me back at once. At length they ceased, and turning round, I found that the mate, at a signal from the captain, had cut him down. Almost doubled up with pain, the man walked slowly forward, and went down into the forecastle. Every one else stood still at his post, while the captain, swelling with rage, and with the importance of his achievement, walked the quarter-deck, and at each turn, as he came forward, calling out to us: You see your condition! You see where I've got you all, and you know what to expect! You've been mistaken in me; you didn't know what I was! Now you know what I am I'll make you toe the mark, every soul of you, or I'll flog you all, fore and aft, from the boy, up! You've got a driver over you! Yes, a slave-driver - a negro-driver! I'll see who'll tell me he is n't a negro slave! With this and the like matter, equally calculated to quiet us, and to allay any apprehensions of future trouble, he entertained us for about ten minutes, when he went below. Soon after, John came aft, with his bare back covered with stripes and wales in every direction, and dreadfully swollen, and asked the steward to ask the captain to let him have some salve, or balsam, to put upon it. No,' said the captain, who heard him from below; tell him to put his shirt on; that's the best thing for him; and pull me ashore in the boat. Nobody is going to lay up on board this vessel.' He then called to Mr. Russell to take those two men and two others in the boat, and pull him ashore. I went for one. The two men could hardly bend their backs, and the captain called to them to give way!''give way!' but finding they did their best, he let them alone. The agent was in the stern sheets, but during the whole pull-a league or more — not a word was spoken. We landed; the captain, agent, and officer went up to the house, and left us with the boat. I, and the man with me, staid near the boat while John and Sam walked slowly away, and sat down on the rocks. They talked some time together, but at length separated, each sitting alone. I had some fears of John. He was a foreigner, and violently tempered, and under suffering; and he had his knife with him, and the captain was to come down alone to the boat. But nothing happened, and we went quietly on board. The captain was probably armed, and if either of them had lifted a hand against him, they would have had nothing before them but flight, and starvation in the woods of California, or capture by the soldiers and Indian blood-hounds, whom the offer of twenty dollars would have set upon them."

"After the day's work was done, we went down into the forecastle, and ate our plaiu supper; but not a word was spoken. It was Saturday night; but there was no song-no 'sweethearts and wives. A gloom was over every thing. The two men lay in their berths, groaning with pain, and we all turned in; but for myself, not to sleep. A sound coming now and then from the berths of the two men, showed that they were awake, as awake they must have been, for they could hardly lie in one posture a moment; the dim, swinging lamp of the forecastle shed its light over the dark

hole in which we lived; and many and various reflections and purposes coursed through my mind. I thought of our situation, living under a tyranny; of the character of the country we were in; of the length of the voyage, and of the uncertainty attending our return to America; and then, if we should return, of the prospect of obtaining justice and satisfaction for these poor men; and vowed that if God should ever give me the means, I would do something to redress the grievances and relieve the sufferings of that poor class of beings, of whom I then was one."

Now, while all will admit the necessity of discipline on board a ship, and the duty which a captain owes to his station and his employers, yet no one, who is not a brute, in feeling or in practice, will be found to extenuate or defend such acts of wanton and barbarous cruelty as are here described; and we must express the hope that the wellknown Boston house of BRYANT, STURGES, AND COMPANY, do not still maintain in their employ so unworthy an officer. Our author adverts, in his closing chapter, to the evidences of good character on shore, which are permitted to weigh with a jury, when such sea-tyrants as Captain T-, are tried for their gross offences against humanity:

"There are many captains whom I know to be cruel and tyrannical men at sea, who yet, among their friends, and in their families, have never lost the reputation they bore in childhood. The sea-captain would be a brute indeed, if, after an absence of months or years, during his short stay, so short that the novelty and excitement of it has hardly time to wear off, and the attentions he receives as a visiter and stranger hardly time to slacken if, under such circumstances, a townsmen or neighbor would be justified in testifying against his correct and peaceable deportment. With the owners of the vessel, also, to which he is attached, and among merchants and insurers generally, he is a very different man from what he may be at sea, when his own master, and the master of every body and every thing about him."

A passenger, on the voyage homeward, in the person of Professor N-, of Cambridge, was unexpectedly found on the coast of California:

"I had left him quietly seated in the chair of Botany and Ornithology, in Harvard University; and the next I saw of him was strolling about San Diego beach, in a sailor's pea-jacket, with a wide straw hat, and barefooted, with his trowsers rolled up to his knees, picking up stones and shells. He had travelled over land to the North-west Coast, and come down in a small vessel to Monterey. There he learned that there was a ship at the leeward, about to sail for Boston; and, taking passage in the Pilgrim, which was then at Monterey, he came slowly down, visiting the intermediate ports, and examining the trees, plants, earths, birds, &c., and joined us at San Diego shortly before we sailed. The second mate of the Pilgrim told me that they had got an old gentleman on board who knew me, and came from the college that I had been in. He could not recollect his name, but said he was a sort of an oldish man,' with white hair, and spent all his time in the bush, and along the beach, picking up flowers and shells, and such truck, and had a dozen boxes and barrels, full of them. I thought over every body who would likely to be there, but could fix upon uo one; when, the next day, just as were about to shove off from the beach, he came down to the boat in the rig I have described, with his shoes in his hand, and his pockets full of specimens. I knew him at once, though I should not have been more surprised to have seen the Old South steeple shoot up from the hide-house. He probably had no less difficulty in recognising me. As we left home about the same time, we had nothing to tell one another; and owing to our different situations on board, I saw but little of him on our passage home. Sometimes, when I was at the wheel of a calm night, and the steering required no attention, and the officer of the watch was forward, he would come aft and hold a short yarn with me; but this was against the rules of the ship, as is, in fact, all intercourse between passengers and the crew. I was often amused to see the sailors puzzled to know what to make of him, and to hear their conjectures about him and his business. They were as much puzzled as our old sailmaker was with the captain's instruments in the cabin. He said there were three: the cro-nometer, the cre-nometer, and the the-nometer. (Chronometer, barometer, and thermometer.) The Pilgrim's crew christened Mr. N. 'Old Curious,' from his zeal for curiosities, and some of them said that he was crazy, and that his friend let him go about and amuse himself in this way. Why else a rich man (sailors call every man rich who do not work with his hands, and wears a long coat and cravat) should leave a Christian country, and come to such a place as California, to pick up shells and stones, they could not understand. One of them, however, an old salt, who had seen something more of the world ashore, set all to rights, as he thought: 'Oh, vast there! You don't know any thing about them craft. I've seen them colleges, and know the ropes. They keep all such things for cur'osities, and study 'em, and have men a' purpose to go get 'em. This old chap knows what he's about. He a'n't the child you take him for. He'll carry all these things to college, and if they are better than any that they have had before, he'll be head of the college. Then, by-and-by, somebody else will go after some more, and if they beat him, he'll have to go again, or else give up his berth. That's the way they do it. This old cove knows the ropes. He has worked a traverse over 'em, and come 'way out here, where uo. body's ever been afore, and they'll never think of coming."

On the return voyage, and while in the latitude of Cape Horn, an immense iceberg was encountered, of which our author gives the annexed vivid description:

"At twelve o'clock we went below, and had just got through dinner, when the cook put his head down the scuttle and told us to come on deck and see the finest sight that we had ever seen. Where away, cook?' asked the first man who was up. On the larbord bow.' And there lay, 46

VOL. XVL

floating in the ocean, several miles off, an immense, irregular mass, its top and points covered with snow, and its centre of a deep indigo color. This was an iceberg, and of the largest size, as one of our men said who had been in the Northern ocean. As far as the eye could reach, the sea in every direction was of a deep blue color, the waves running high and fresh, and sparkling in the light, and in the midst lay this immense mountain-island, its cavities and valleys thrown into deep shade, and its points and pinnacles glittering in the sun. All hands were soon on deck, looking at it, and admiring in various ways, its beauty and grandeur. But no description can give any idea of the strangeness, splendor, and, really, the sublimity, of the sight. Its great size for it must have been from two to three miles in circumference, and several hundred feet in height-its slow motion, as its base rose and sank in the water, and its high points nodded against the clouds; the dashing of the waves upon it, which, breaking high with foam, lined its base with a white crust; and the thundering sound of the cracking of the mass, and the breaking and tumbling down of huge pieces; together with its nearness and approach, which added a slight element of fear, — all combined to give it the character of true sublimity. The main body of the mass was, as I have said, of an indigo color, its base crusted with frozen foam; and as it grew thin and transparent toward the edges and top, its color shaded off from a deep blue to the whiteness of snow. It seemed to be drifting slowly toward the north, so that we kept away and avoided it. It was in sight all the afternoon; and when we got to leeward of it, the wind died away, so that we lay-to quite near it for a greater part of the night. Unfortunately, there was no moon, but it was a clear night, and we could plainly mark the long, regular heaving of the stupendous mass, as its edges moved slowly against the stars. Several times in our watch loud cracks were heard, which sounded as though they must have run through the whole length of the iceberg, and several pieces fell down with a thundering crash, plunging heavily into the sea. Toward morning, a strong breeze sprang up, and we filled away, and left it astern, and at daylight it was out of sight."

Notwithstanding, says our author, all that has been written about the beauty of a ship under full sail, there are very few who have ever seen a ship literally under all her sail. This noble sight, however, was vouchsafed to him, in the tropics:

"One night, I went out to the end of the flying-jib-boom, upon some duty, and, having finished it, turned round, and lay over the boom for a long time, admiring the beauty of the sight before me. Being so far out from the deck, I could look at the ship, as at a separate vessel; and, there rose up from the water, supported only by the small black bull, a pyramid of canvass, spreading out far beyond the hull, and towering up almost, as it seemed in the indistinct night air, to the clouds. The sea was as still as an inland lake; the light trade-wind was gently and steadily breathing from astern; the dark blue sky was studded with the tropical stars; there was no sound but the rippling of the water under the stem; and the sails were spread out, wide and high; the two lower studding-sails stretching, on each side, far beyond the deck; the top-mast studding-sails, like wings to the top-sails; the top gallant studding-sails spreading fearlessly out above them; still higher, the two royal studding-sails, looking like two kites flying from the same string; and, highest of all, the little sky-sail, the apex of the pyramid, seeming actually to touch the stars, and to be out of reach of human hand. So quiet, too, was the sea, and so steady the breeze, that if these sails had been sculptured marble, they could not have been more motionless. Not a ripple upon the surface of the canvass; not even a quivering at the extreme edges of the sail-so perfectly were they distended by the breeze. I was so lost in the sight, that I forgot the presence of the man who came out with me, until he said, (for he, too, rough old man-of-war's man as he was, had been gazing at the show,) half to himself, still looking at the marble sails, How quietly they do their work!"

Copious as are our extracts, we had marked many more for insertion; among them a description of two ships meeting at sea, 'standing head on, and bowing and curvetting at each other like war-horses reined in by their riders;' a picture of a calm in the tropics; of the entrance to Boston bay, with the light-houses standing, 'like sentinels in white, before the harbor;' of the saving, by Yankee captains, of all holidays, and the consequent advantages which the American sailor enjoys over Catholic seamen; the remarks upon the Sandwich Islands, into which white men, from countries called Christian, have introduced revolting diseases, before unknown, which are sweeping off one-fortieth of the entire population annually; and several other entertaining or profitable passages, for a perusal of which we must refer our readers to the volume itself. Aside from matters of various interest, we have ourselves risen from its discussion with a new sense of the sublime in nature; with a more enlarged conception of the vastness of the 'grey and melancholy wastes' of ocean which spread around earth's isles and continents; upon which the early dawn breaks and day-light fades alike; where the almost living vessel, fleet sailing, drops in the distant wave the Southern Cross, the Magellan Clouds, the wild and stormy cape; where- unlike the travel of the land, which at the most conquers a narrow horizon after horizon each succeeding night the homeward ship sinks some celestial constellation in the backward distance, raising another 'landmark of the heavens' in the onward waste of mingled sea and sky! Truly saith the Psalmist, 'They who go down to the sea in ships, and do business in great waters, these see the works of the LORD, and His wonders in the deep!'

:

THE STAGE BOTH BEFORE AND BEHIND THE CURTAIN. From 'Observations Taken on the Spot.' BY ALFRED BUNN, late Lessee of the Theatres Royal, Drury Lane and Covent-Garden. In two volumes. pp. 538. Philadelphia: LEA AND BLANCHARD.

'CAPITAL! capital!' exclaimed at intervals, and some dozen of times, a worthy friend of ours - who sometimes takes an arm-chair in the sanctum, and devours damp books fresh from the publishers' -as he sat through the live-long day, to peruse the volumes before us; and truth to say, when we subsequently followed him through their entertaining pages, we were at no loss to account for his enthusiastic admiration. The English press has borne testimony to the great interest and faithfulness of the work, and advised us of the writer's unequalled opportunities of correct observation; and the last number of BLACKWOOD Commends the volumes in no measured terms. 'Mr. BUNN,' says CHRISTOPHER NORTH, 'has dashed into the whole subject of stages, actors, and management, with all the fearlessness of one who has abundance of facts at his disposal; laying on the lash with a keenness which will make the sufferers remember him with much more sensibility than tenderness;' and supplying the public with the most unanswerable evidence, that there is a little world within the walls of theatres, made abundantly 'busy, bitter, and perplexing, by such mimics as ramble from Drury Lane to Covent-Garden, and from Covent-Garden to Drury Lane.' The following remarks do not include, as Mr. BUNN subsequently informs us, the more gentlemanlike and distinguished members of the theatrical profession, as rare as they are pleasant to meet with, among the illustrious minores whose backs have once rubbed against the scenes of a play-house.' Players, says our author, if examined upon the principles that regulate society at large, are altogether unintelligible:

"An author is vaiu but upon one point; an actor is vain upon all. You can scarcely persuade the most crooked varlet that ever presented himself at the stage door for examination, that he is not the glass of fashion and the mould of form; or many a hound, who literally yelps out his notes, that he is not a second Rubini. You can impress on the minds of very few who have once crossed the stage, that the British nation, to a man, is not thinking of them morning, noon, and night. They are the most obsequious, and yet the most independent set of people upon earth; their very vitality is based upon the weakest of all weaknesses-vanity: almost every sentiment put in their mouths is at variance with every action of their lives; their whole existence is an anomaly. The feverish state of excitement upon which their fortunes depend, is a perpetual drawback to any exercise of the judgment they are supposed to possess. Their occupations bring them for ever before a tribunal whose opinion, being decisive for the moment, induces them to mistake tempo. rary approbation for permanent respect, without once referring to circumstances. They virtually serve two masters, their employer behind the curtain, and the spectator before it; but upon the established principle of not being in reality able to serve both at one time, they select, in all cases of emergency, the one they deem the most powerful."

In the various and amusing gossip which succeeds, and which fills these volumes, we gather, very clearly, that the characters which our author here describes, and which he otherwise and elsewhere scourges, are mainly of that secondary class of histrions, some of the least reputable and 'talented' of whom now and then find their way across the Atlantic, attracted by the reputation and dollars acquired by the well-educated and accomplished English actors who preceded them. As we have before observed, in some remarks upon the high character of many native and foreign actors with whom we have had the pleasure to be acquainted, from such as these, who may have sought to retrieve or obtain in this country the character and reputation which they have lost, or never possessed, in their own, little can be anticipated that is not baneful in its influence upon society in our principal Atlantic cities; and especially upon the young and thoughtless, who ape not only their thin varnish of external politeness, and their second-hand stage portraiture of the true gentleman, but the vices which are inherent in their old habitudes and associations. Sterling theatrical talent, moreover, is often temporarily forestalled by these involuntary exiles from a country which has not 'sufficiently appreciated them!' Instances there are, in which grimacing buffoons, from the lowest English play-houses-places where, as our 'American in London' observes, a man being kicked out of a subordinate station in the higher theatrical establishments, forthwith appears as a star! have come to America, and by brazen self-puffery, and a servile imitation of certain 'diverting mountebanks' at home, whom Mr. BUNN cites as 'striking illustrations

of the vast difference there is between a farceur and a comedian,' obtained a shortlived notoriety, which has at once been vaunted as 'unbounded popularity!' A certain portion of the play-going public may for a while be amused by this class of self-imported 'mountebanks,' and thus temporarily assist to divert a support which might be otherwise and less mischievously bestowed. But at length, grimace palls; and the 'poor player' finds that the making of faces alone, will not serve the public's turn. Mrs. JARLEY, of Boz's 'caravan,' is a much more fortunate character. Being itinerant, she can make the same wax-actor play a different part in every town through which she passes; here altering the costume of the clown, to represent Lindlay Murray, as he appeared when engaged in the composition of his English Grammar,' and there 'turning a murderess of great renown into Miss Hannah More! But a stationary human player, of the changeable wax-figure school, can hope for no such good luck; and there's the humor of it! Something too much of this, however. There are points, and many of them, embraced in the general theme of these volumes, which we have neither time nor space at present to discuss; we shall therefore again resume the consideration of the work; which we cordially commend to such of our readers as desire to be greatly entertained and amused.

AIRS OF PALESTINE, AND OTHER POEMS. BY JOHN PIERPONT. In one volume. pp. 334. Boston: JAMES MONROE AND COMPANY.

LET not the reader turn instantly away from the above title-page, and the few remarks we have to offer upon the very beautiful volume which it heralds, under the impression that we are about to produce a long retrospective criticism of productions so familiar to the public as the 'Airs of Palestine,' and many of the 'other poems' of this collection, several of which, we may add, were written for the KNICKERBOCKER. Let him rather understand that here, conspicuous in large, clear types, impressed upon fine white paper, are all the miscellaneous and occasional poems of our author, down to the present time, embracing, 'Hymns for the Lord's Supper and Christmas; for Ordination, Dedication, and Installation; Hymns and Odes for Charity and Temperance Occasions, and for Anniversary, Centennial, and other Celebrations; together with funereal, patriotic, and political pieces; not to mention 'Gleanings,' which would alone make the reputation of half a score of the would-be bards who hang upon the skirts of our poetical literature. There are numerous and various effusions embraced in the volume, which will be new to the general reader; and he will need no other inducement to seek them out, than a grateful memory of their elder brethren. Very amusing is the temperance song, to the tune of 'Yankee Doodle,' and very beautiful the 'Fugitive's Apostrophe to the North Star; both of which we had marked for insertion; but Dan Tantalus mocked us in this, as in other matters. We present that noble poem, 'The Exile at Rest,' because we are for the first time aware of its real authorship:

His falchion flashed along the Nile;

His hosts he led through Alpine snows: O'er Moscow's towers, that shook the while, His eagle flag unrolled and froze.

Here sleeps he now, alone; - not one
Of all the kings whose crowns he gave,
Nor sire, nor brother, wife, nor son,

Hath ever seen or sought his grave.

Here sleeps he now alone; the star,
That led him on from crown to crown,
Hath sunk; the natious from afar
Gazed, as it faded and went down.

He sleeps aloue; - the mountain cloud
That night hangs round him, and the breath

Of morning scatters, is the shroud

That wraps his martial form in death.

High is his couch; - the ocean flood

Far, far below by storms is curled,
As round him heaved, while high he stood,
A stormy and inconstant world.

Hark! Comes there from the Pyramids,

And from Siberia's wastes of snow,
And Europe's fields, a voice that bids
The world he awed to mourn him? - No!

The only, the perpetual dirge,

That's heard here, is the sea-bird's cry, The mournful murmur of the surge,

The cloud's deep voice, the wind's low sigh.

When the Great Warrior's remains shall cer,' in the gay metropolis, how changed will be the theme of the poet!

share the glories of a Parisian opera dan