summer when Old Vinegar, as we used to call him, (Sir Hyde Parker, afterwards drowned in the Cato, going to India,) had that queer fight on the Doggerbank, with the Dutch admiral Zoutman.

Now I think of it, while it's in my head, I'll tell you a story about that said old ship Cato, which is very remarkable. Sir Hyde Parker, after the affair of the Doggerbank, was appointed commander-in-chief in the East Indies, and sailed for his station in the Cato, a fifty gun ship. Just before she sailed, old Pine, a conjuror at Portsmouth, who gained his livelihood by telling lies and fortunes, told one of the midshipmen that he was going to sea in a ship on a distant station, and that she would never be heard of more. The midshipman believed him and deserted; the ship sailed, and never was heard of more after she crossed the line. She is supposed to have upset in a white squall off the south end of Madagascar. The poor midshipman saved his life but lost his character, and, I believe, died a gunner in the navy.

I remember we lay in a place they call Peggy's-hole, at North Shields. The Cameleon brig was a fellow-cruizer of ours. She came in one day, and told us of a bloody action she had fought with a Dutch_galliot privateer, which blew up; they only saved her ensign, and the hairy scalp of a Dutchman which lodged in their rigging. I remember seeing them. Old Drury was the captain of the Cameleon, and the late Sir John Reid, Bart., the first lieutenant how I used to envy this latter! he was a fine dashing young fellow, full of fun and fire, and always in mischief; he and the other officers used to make my brother and me hail the colliers, and order them to strike their pendants, which they had the impudence to wear alongside of us-they don't do those things nowa-days; and we used to fire a musquet ball through their top-gallantsails, if they failed to lower them as they passed us. One day my brother let fly a shot through the belly of the sail, and down came a fellow by the back stay, like a young crow out of a nest; it might have been a coroner's inquest case, but luckily there was no harm done, only the boy said he did not see any fun in setting there to be shot at. One day we got a little brass gun, and fixed it on the quarter deck; it was loaded with small shot, and one of them stuck in the first lieutenant's leg, but it was of no consequence, his legs were of the Irish chairman order of human architecture, so it was cut and come again,'-but we did not come that again. The old fellow hopped, and did not look pleased, but as we were the captain's sons he thought it best to get his white cotton stocking mended and say no more about it. Tired of our pyrotechnical pursuits we resolved to try hydraulics, and our first experiment was made on the old boatswain. We were amusing ourselves in the barge, as she lay on the booms ; it had rained a good deal; the boatswain, a fine white-headed old man, was sitting at the cornings of the main hatchway reading, but what book it was I do not know. Old Pipes was unfortunately at the moment under the very plug-hole of the boat, and my brother, who, to do him justice, never lost an opportunity of mischief, proposed a shower bath for him; it was no sooner said than done, out comes the plug, and down comes the black and copious stream of bilge water, which washed off his half ports, that is, his spectacles, deluged his book, and thoroughly saturated his toggery from neck to waistband. This feat gave no more satisfaction than the last, and soon after we tried our genius on the laws of motion and gravity. My brother who was a much cleverer boy than I, and a year or two older, consented that I, with the assistance of others, should tie his hands and feet together,

making him in the shape of a hoop, and thus see whether he would or could trundle round the decks. just as the the ligature part of the affair was completed, by some mismanagement, the ship taking a lurch at the same time, he fetched way, slipped out of our hands, and rolled head over heels down the after hatchway. I thought, to be sure, that I should have come to the title by this move; but no, the flower of the family was quite unhurt, and when the danger was over, I thought we should have died a laughing.

How do you think we used to clear for action in those days, on board our small frigates? Why, the first thing we did when we saw a suspicious sail, without knowing or caring whether she was an enemy or not, was to turn to with crowbars and axes, stave the long boat, and throw her overboard, also all her coops and other moveable articles of furniture, and then we used to go into port and get others. This was the practice of the old school, but the schoolmaster is abroad now.

Things had now come to that pass with us, that it was high time something should be done; it was plain, that some ignominious fate awaited our continuance in this state of practical experiment and excitement ; the flower of our family, my mother's hope, had already nearly fallen a sacrifice to my early speculations, to say nothing of the first lieutenant's leg, or the boatswain's library. On my last examination, or little go,' by my father, as touching my literary qualifications, he discovered that in the list of my acquirements, 'the catalogue of negatives,' as somebody says, was very copious. I knew very little, and what I did know would have taken much time well employed to unknow again, so we hauled our wind and came ashore, where difficulties and dangers beset us on every side. In the first place, there was no money in the exchequer to put me to school-that I cared very little about-but then, as a matter of course, I had none in my pocket-and that I cared about very much. I have already hinted, that in point of literary acquirements I was a carte blanche; but my mind was ever active, and if the turn which I took had been properly managed and improved, I have very little doubt but that I should at this time have been astonishing senates with the depth and expansion of my mercantile knowledge and pursuits; I should in all probability have been by the side of Baring in the House of Commons, or perhaps, past Baring, like an immense number of others.

Allow me now only to observe that my anecdotes are not given in regular chronological order, but just as they happen to pop into my head, as some doctors make out their prescriptions. Having laid in as much learning as my father could afford to give me, and full as much as I wished, at the age of eleven I left school, and went to France, where I bragged that, I had finished my education.' Little did I think how much instruction was to follow, and at what a price I was to obtain it. I soon learned to speak French, by the most obvious means in the world, viz. playing, fighting, and quarrelling with every scampish French boy I met. We learned the French for black eyes and bloody noses, and they learned the English for the same. As soon as I was complete in this branch of science, I boldly pressed my father to let me go to sea-my brother had gone the year before, and had already excited my envy by the accounts he sent home of his deeds of daring.' The affair was soon settled. A most particular friend of my father had been then recently appointed to a ship, to fit her out for the broad pendant of Billy Blue, for the East Indies. I was shipped, equipped, and most kindly received by my captain, who was very civil to me when

my father was by, (that is, for about ten minutes,) and never was civil to me for one moment afterwards, though we were a year together. Midshipmen in those days used to wear a uniform coat or jacket, but in all other respects every part of their undress was dependent on their taste and fancy. The big ones wore powder in enormous quantities; huge tails thickened with flour and hog's lard, describing a semi-circle on their backs. They had gold-laced hats, red waistcoats, corduroy breeches, yellow top-boots, but, oddly enough, never wore blue cloth trousers, as they do now, though the sailors did. Pantaloons came over with the emigrants in 1794-5. My dress I remember very well; my first naval jacket was made by a country tailor and a well cut thing it wassquare sterned, not round a la Seppings, our sterns were never intended to be shown to an enemy, and I was ashamed to show mine to a friend; it was cut out with three strokes of a broad axe, the buttons like those of the old warrant officers, those on the rump a foot asunder, those on the cuffs, single breasted, a white patch on the collar, called a weekly account, a blue waistcoat, breeches of black everlasting as it was called, (like horse-hair chair-bottoms,) though I took care, that with me, at least, the gift of immortality should not be continued to them, for I sold them to the black aid-de-camp in the staff of the governor of St. Jago, for a bunch of plantains and two guinea-fowls, which I thought a very profitable spec; at that time I had no calves quartered on my legs, and my grey worsted stockings hung slack on my spindles. My knee-buckles were brass, as were those for my shoes. A lion-headed hanger, with red morocco belt, hung dangling on my thigh, and sometimes it intruded itself between my legs, and caused, as the Yankees call it, 'a sudden prostration.' My hat was cocked, like a coachman's, only not so well; the brim and the crown were of equal altitude; the cockade was composed of one yard and a quarter of two-inch black ribbon, folded into six-inch length, and tied in the middle with a bit of black bobbin; with the same it was suspended from the brim of my hat over my left eye, which gave me a fierce and warlike look; my hair hung in long rat's-tails over my shoulders. At that time Commissioner Proby reigned supreme in Chatham dock-yard, and his daughters have told me that they remember my consequential swagger and self-importance. Well, I know others as bad now, and who ought to know better. This puts me in mind of the way in which Old Jack, as they used to call Lord St. Vincent, was dressed when he first went to sea, forty years before that. His hat, he told me, was nearly similar to my own in shape and texture, but his coat was of blue frieze down to his heels, without a collar; round sugar-loaf buttons, or rather gilt gingerbread nuts ; a dagger suspended by a belt outside of his coat, hung elegantly parallel to the ground; worsted stockings, &c. So that between this great man and me there was some sim ilarity, at least in our outset. When he was first introduced to his patroness, she could not get him to come near her; he sneaked behind the friend that presented him and could not be brought to approach: we see sheepish boys sometimes make lionish men. But I have heard of a much queerer rig than that-what think you of a midshipman, in 1747, starting the flocks overboard out of his mattress, and making himself a pair of trowsers and a waistcoat out of the ticking? After this he gave a marine a bottle of rum for one of his old uniform red coats, and made it into one for himself; in this dress, with a wig over his hair, he waited on Sir Peter Warren, then a lord of the Admiralty, and told him he had just arrived from the East Indies. Well, and

SO

what did Sir Peter say to him?' you will inquire. Why, he patted him on the head, and called him a good boy, told him he would make him a lieutenant, and he did too; for though I am no great lover of old times, I like to give them their due, and when they made a promise they generally stuck to it. I wish I could say as much for some people now-adays; but never mind,' great cry and little wool,' as a certain gentleman said when he shaved the pig. I suppose we shall have justice done us when we are all reformed.

In my day, our full dress was a long coat, white waistcoat and breeches of kerseymere, with hats round or cocked as we could afford, and a 'Clarence sword;' an ivory-hilted strait hanger-but this was optional, there was no order for it. Now I think, dear Tom, you must be tired of this yarn: I began at 9 A. M., it is now 2. S0.-and if you are not tired, I am; but still always, D..

Yours most affectionately,

THE BLUSH OF MODESTY.

་

'PAINT us, dear Zeuxis,' said some of the chief inhabitants of Cortona, paint us a portrait of the Grecian Helen, and in her, the beau ideal of female loveliness.' 'I consent,' replied the artist, on condition that you send to me, as models, six of the most beautiful maidens of your city, in order that I may select from each some particular charm.' On the morrow they came, so beautiful in youth and gracefulness, that now for the first time, the painter mistrusted the power of his art. Ye are indeed fair, my charming maids ;' he said, but it is indispensable that you should sit to me unveiled.'Unveiled!' they all exclaimed in surprise, unveiled! never! never!' was echoed from mouth to mouth. By dint, however, of entreaties, but more by flattery, the courteous artist at length succeeded in allaying the scruples of five of them, but the constancy of the sixth, remained unshaken. Though it were to be Venus herself,' she cried, indignantly, I would not consent.' All expostulation was vain-she fled, blushing. Zeuxis took his pencil and colors-studied his models, and after a few weeks of incessant labor, produced his Helen,' the glory of his art, and the admiration of the world. The day of public exhibition arrived; the applause was unanimous-the candid and unprejudiced were enraptured-the jealous and the envious reclaimed or overawed. But, alone dissatisfied amidst the universal triumph, the artist exhibited on his wrinkled brow the marks of discontent. Ever prone as thou art,' said his friend Aretus, 'to discover faults in thy own performances where none exist, what can now be thy subject of regret? The drawing,' replied Zeuxis, is perfect, the subject faultless, and I might indeed write underneath it henceforward it will be easier to criticise this picture than to imitate it,—but there is still one thing wanting to its perfection.' And what can that

be?

THE BLUSH OF THE SIXTH MAIDEN.'

DOMESTIC MANNERS OF THE SPANISH.

CONSIDERING the rich materials with which Spain abounds for the work of the novelist, or the skilful depicter of manners and character, it is a matter of surprise, that among our ten thousand writers, luminous, voluminous, not one should have attempted to give a portraiture of the Spanish of the present day, as they are seen in their homes, surrounded by the domestic influences of ordinary life, which in Spain alone, of all countries of modern Europe, possesses the charm of romance. In the singular, and perpetually-recurring contrasts of habits and character; in the extraordinary admixture of barbarism and civilization, the one breathing all the energy of the heroic times of Pelajo, the other as yet uninfected by the inactive and unrelieved coldness and egotism which has overspread the surface of more polished communities; the pen of a Scott, or a Cooper, might find abundant matter for its enchanting combinations. In France, Mr. Salvandy, by the publication of his ingenious and excellent novel of Alonzo,' has happily illustrated the truth of our assertion; while in Germany, Huber, his follower and competitor in the same track, has been no less successful in earning for his exertions as wide and extensive a popularity. His 'Sketches in Spain,' a work executed with great skill and practical ability, entitles him to a high rank as a delineator of national manners and character. He carries his reader to Spain, and makes him acquainted with the many eminent characteristic points which mainly distinguish it from other nations; he introduces him to the domestic privacy of the Spanish people; he shows them to him in the seclusion of their own homes, in society, and in active life, under the influence of fierce political excitement. In the fervor of his zeal for setting the Spanish people in a proper point of view, he pours out the vials of his wrath against French, and more particularly English travellers, for the haughty contempt and sarcastic flippancy which distinguish their accounts of his favorite people; and employs much ingenuity of argument, and warmth of eloquence, to prove that the happiness of a people may not be incompatible with the absence of certain material enjoyments which are the production of a more advanced state of civilization.

Independent of the portraiture of national character and manners, the work possesses an additional and more important claim to our attention, as it presents us with a faithful picture of the political state of Spain, during the short, but memorable struggle of Riego. The rise, progress, and melancholy termination of the attempted revolution; the feelings with which it was hailed by the different orders of men; the splitting of parties, the conflicting views and interests, the discussions, the disputes

are all displayed with great accuracy and effect. Just sufficient fictitious private details are introduced, to give a dramatic form; indeed, he states formally, that the title of his work proves that he had no intention of writing a romance, and that, in the events described, he was always a witness, most frequently an actor.

In the following passages, he introduces his dramatis personæ to the reader.