tone.

ing earnestly, though in a suppressed [fied that the mutineers could not have I cautiously drew near the accomplished their aim with impunity. spot from whence the noise arose, but I was horror struck. A swimming the alarm was given, and I could see sensation came over my eyes, my no one. I retired to rest, or rather to limbs failed me, and I fell senselie down, for I felt that heavy and less. foreboding sense of evil overpower me, which comes we know not how or wherefore; and I could not sleep, knowing that there had been disputes between the Captain and his men respecting some point of discipline; and I feared to think what might be the consequences. I lay a long time disturbed with these unpleasant reflections; at last, wearied with my thoughts, my eyes closed, and I dropped to sleep. But it was not to that refreshing sleep which recruits the exhausted spirits, and by a while 'steeping the senses in forgetfulness," renders them fitter for exertion on awakening. My sleep was haunted with hideous and confused dreams, and murder and blood seemed to surround me. I was awakened by convulsive starts, and in vain sought again for quiet slumber; the same images filled my mind, diversified in a thousand horrid forms. Early in the morning I arose, and went above, and the mild sea breeze dispelled my uneasy sensations.

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During the whole of the day, nothing seemed to justify the fears which had tormented me; and every thing went on in its regular course. The men pursued their occupations quietly, and in silence, and I thought the temporary fit of disaffection was passed over;-alas! I remembered not that the passions of men, like deep waters, are most to be suspected when they seem to glide along most smoothly. Night came on, and I retired to rest more composed than on the preceding evening.-I endeavoured to convince myself that the noises I had heard were but the fancies of a disturbed imagination, and I slept soundly. Ill-timed security!-about midnight I was awakened by a scuffling in the vessel. I hastened to the spot. The Captain and one of his officers were fighting against a multitude of the ship's crew. In a moment after I saw the officer fall. Two fellows advanced to me, and clapping pistols to my breast, threatened instant death, if I stirred or spoke. I gazed on the bloody spectacle; the bodies which lay around, swimming in gore, testi

When I recovered, I found myself lying on a bed. Every thing was still. I listened in vain for a sound; I lay still a considerable time; at last I rose and walked about the ship, but could see no one. I searched every part of the vessel; I visited the place of slaugh ter, which I had at first carefully avoided; I counted nine dead bodies, and the coagulated blood formed a loathsome mass around them; I shuddered to think I was desolate, the companion of death. Good God!" said I, "and they have left me here alone!" The word sounded like a knell to me. It now occurred to me that it was necessary the bodies should be thrown overboard. I took up one of them, and dragged it to the side, and plunged it into the waves, but the dash of the heavy body into the sea reminded me more forcibly of my loneliness. The sea was so calm, I could scarcely hear it ripple by the vessel's side. One by one I committed the bodies to their watery grave. At last my horrible task was finished. My next work was to look for the ship's boats, but they were' gone, as I expected. I could not bear to remain in the ship, it seemed a vast tomb for me. I resolved to make some sort of a raft and depart in it. This occupied two or three days; at length it was completed, and I succeeded in setting it afloat.

I lowered into it all the provision I could find in the ship, which was but little, the sailors having, as I imagined, carried off the remainder. All was ready, and I prepared to depart. I trembled at the thought of the dangers I was about to encounter. I was going to commit myself to the ocean, separated from it only by a few boards, which a wave might scatter over the surface of the waters. might never arrive at land, or meet with any vessel to rescue me from my danger, and I should be exposed without shelter, and almost without food. I half resolved to remain in my present situation; but a moment's reflection dispelled the idea of such a measure. I descended, I stood on my frail raft, I cut the rope by which

I

it was fastened to the ship; I was confused to think of my situation. I could hardly believe that I had dared to enter alone on the waste of waters. I endeavoured to compose myself, but in vain. As far as I could see, nothing presented itself to my view, but the vessel I had left. The sea was perfectly still, for not the least wind was stirring. I endeavoured, with two pieces of boards, which supplied the place of oars, to row myself along, but the very little progress I made alarmed me. If the calm should continue, I should perish of hunger. How I longed to see the little sail I had made, agitated by the breeze. watched it from morning to night, it was my only employment, but in vain. The weather continued the same. Two days passed over. I looked at my store of provision; it would not, I found, last above three or four days longer, at the farthest. They were quickly passing away. I almost gave myself up for lost. I had scarcely a hope of escaping.

I became hourly more feeble; I lay down, but was unable to rise again. My limbs lost their strength, my lips and tongue were parched; a convulsive shuddering agitated me; my eyes seemed darkened, and I gasped for breath.

The burning at my stomach now departed, I experienced no pain; but a dull torpor came over me; my hands and feet became cold. I believed I was dying, and I rejoiced at the thought. Presently I lost all thought and feeling, and lay, without sense, on the few boards which divided me from the ocean. In this situation, as II was afterwards informed, I was taken up by a small vessel, and carried to a sea-port town. I slowly recovered, and find, that I alone, of all who were on board of the vessel in which I had embarked, had escaped death. The crew who had departed in the boats after murdering the Captain, had met their reward in the waves, the boats having been shattered against a rock.

On the fourth day since my departure from the ship, I thought I perceived something at a distance-I looked at it intently-it was a sail. Good heavens! what were my emotions at this sight? I fastened my handkerchief on a piece of wood, and waved it, in hopes that it would be observed, and that I should be rescued from my fearful condition. The vessel pressed on its course; I shouted; I knew they could not hear me, but despair impelled me to try so useless an expedient. It passed on-it grew dim-I stretched my eyeballs to see it-it vanished-it was gone.-I will not attempt to describe the torturing feelings which possessed me, at seeing the chance of relief which had offered itself destroyed. I was stupified with grief and disappointment. My stock of provisions was now entirely exhausted, and I looked forward with horror to an excruciating death.

I am now safe in my native land, thankful for my deliverance, and without any desire again to tempt the ocean.

DISSERTATION ON CARE.

THERE is something in the nature of care, I mean the kind of care which will presently be explained, more corrosive of human happiness than can well be imagined. Its usual concomi tants are anxiety, fear, and a certain species of indifference, as it respects a variety of objects of legitimate solicitude. It differs much in kind, according to the characteristics of those whom it infects,-so multiform are its operations, and extensive its desolating influence on human happiness, that it may even be regarded as a species of judicial punishment.

In our comparative estimate of human misery and happiness, the existence of this subtle agent may influence our judgments towards the widest extreme of error. It is not the appearance of much positive suffering, nor the blandishments of gaiety asso

A little water which remained, quenched my burning thirst. I wished that the waves would rush, over me. My hunger soon became dreadful, but I had no means of relieving it. I endeavoured to sleep, that I might for a while forget my torments, and myciated with the circumstantials of hapwearied frame yielded for a while to slumber. When I awoke, I was not, however, refreshed; I was weak, and felt a burning pain at my stomach;

piness, that impregnate and identify with their respective natures, the stream of future existence, or from which the actual relations of either

can be ascertained. in that which they impose upon us. We may be appalled at the spectacles of suffering, where privations and inflictions meet, and where nature's sorrows are heard in all the depth and variety of her woes, and the settled shadow of despair completes the harmony of the picture; and in the midst of this there may be no care. Nature may assert her majesty, and sustain all with fortitude and serenity. If not, the satisfactions of virtue, and the necessity of the case, will forbid the self-reproaches of the past, and the concentration of feeling will circumscribe and absorb the vagrant cares of the present and the future. And in this we may discern traces of the wisdom of providence, in adjusting the good and the evil, and apportioning from the chaos of ruin and disorder, the marred vestiges of original good, with the appropriate quantum of natural and moral evil. In this way God reigns over a ruined world, producing good out of evil,-purifying his people by submission,-a concomitant of the highest virtues of their probationary state.

"A battle or a triumph are conjunctures in "which not one man in a million is likely to "be engaged; but when we see a person at "the point of death, we cannot forbear be"ing attentive to every thing he says or "does, because we are sure that some time "or other we shall ourselves be in the same "melancholy circumstances. The general, "the statesman, the philosopher, are, per"haps, characters which we may never act "in, but the dying man is one, whom sooner "or later we shall certainly resemble."

grandeur, and the remains of magnificence. For this purpose, I am frequently in the habit of retiring to a dilapidated old priory, in this neighhourhood, where the broken arches, the unpaned remains of gothic windows, and stones covered with moss, remind me that its former owners have departed to that country, from whose bourn no traveller returns. Years have passed away since the voice of the vesper song resounded through its cloisters, and the magnificence of Romish ceremony illumed its halls; and the union of all these circumstances, with the flitting light of the evening, the numerous swarms of dancing gnats, and the passing breezes of the ocean, appears to me with one voice, and in a deep tone of sentiment, to exclaim, Sic transit gloria mundi."

On the other hand, how inseparable are cares from prosperity; and, as I SPECTATOR, No. 289. observed above, through being di- NOTHING appears to me more calcurected to certain objects, it induces lated to excite salutary reflection, indifference as it respects many sub-than a contemplation of the ruins of jects of legitimate solicitude;—this may be referred to one among other anomalies of the human mind. Could the cares of the human mind be properly adjusted, the fertile and luxuriant pruned, and what is irregular repressed, their harmony would prevent the pressure of their extent; but their irregularity is one cause why they become, as it were, ministering spirits of evil, just as the want of order in hell is characteristic of that abode of misery. To resume the more immediate thread of illustration; in proportion as men recede from a condition of positive suffering in this life, in any or many of its shapes, they become the subjects of anxious and corroding cares; and independently of the benign influence of genuine religion, and of causes confined to intervals, the universality of facts will support the theory. The past, the present, and the future, multiply the evil in proportion to the ramifications of interest, pleasure, and imaginative good; it is the faculty of originating the latter, that those know little of, who are used to No. 41.-Vol. IV.

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The scenery around is peculiarly picturesque. The ruin stands on the brow of a hill, that overlooks the little town of Trepewan, through which runs a small river, which disappears by the projection of a hill,

2 L

Lord Erdline not only united in his disposition the cruelty, rapine, and avarice, but also the superstition, so prevalent at the period alluded to, and being willing rather to submit to fatigue, than to the deprivation of his riches, he arrayed himself in the weeds of a palmer, and travelled to the shrine of St. Thomas of Canterbury; but, as the legend further informs us, he could get no rest until he built a monastery, and thus enclosed the bones of the servant of St. Francis, after whom the priory was named.

and further up again meets the eye, | next morning, by a peasant, in a dying but apparently without any connection state. When he found himself so near with the stream below, and still fur- dissolution, he exclaimed, "Cursed ther up are to be seen the hills whence be the man who would not open his it takes its rise. On the right hand is doors unto me, yea, and a malison a grove, thick and shady, which shall rest upon him, till he shall enyears have raised to a state of ma- tomb my bones with a sepulchre, that jesty, inimitable by art, and almost shall atone for my murder." unsurpassed by nature. Through its foliage appear the half-hidden towers of the remains of the ancient and gothic Erdline Castle, and the chimneys of the newly erected building, which is called the Hall, though it retains the name of its possessors, as its cognominal prefix. On the left, is a small waterfall, over which a plank is cast for the convenience of passengers, from the common (on which the priory stands) to the high road. Green fields, which lie on a steep declivity, and terminate in a deep and dark glen, through which the same small river continues its course to the sea, inform the beholder that the agriculturist has not been idle here. The prospect is bounded on this side, and in the front, by a ridge of blue hills, which have for many ages defied the buffets of the winds, and prevented the encroachments of the ocean.

This monastery was founded about the year 1488,* by Lord Erdline, under the name of THE PRIORY OF Sr. FRANCIS, OF TREPEWAN. Tradition preserves the following story as the cause of its erection. During some civil wars, I should suppose the wars of York and Lancaster, an old mendicant friar, travelling near this place, was overtaken by the night, which was cold and frosty. He went to Erdline Castle, and besought that they would give him a night's lodging, which (as the lord was an avaricious and cruel man) was refused. The old man, distressed by this treatment, withdrew himself to the site of the present ruin, where he laid himself down on the ground. Overcome with fatigue and old age, in addition to the inclement weather, he was found the

That is, if I may credit an inscription, which I myself chanced to find among the

ruins.

+ I had this story from an old woman of our town, of the name of Elizabeth Camdeller, who is famous for her legendary knowledge. She informed me, that this circumstance was related to her by her great-grandfather, who had it written in an old book, but which, in a late fire, in this neighbourhood, was destroyed.

It was one evening in April or May, | I forget which, that I retired to the place I have already described, and seated myself on a stone of some magnitude, which appears once to have been the foundation of a part of the wall: I sat musing for some time, and at last broke out in a soliloquy, "Here," said I, "the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest."

"The storm that wrecks the winter sky, No more disturbs their deep repose, Than Summer evening's latest sigh,

That shuts the rose."

The twilight was come, the evening was growing cold; I rose and walked through the ruined cloisters. "The winds of ages," continued I, "have swept over the remains of my fellowcreatures, which repose under these desolated stones, once so revered. The glory is departed from these walls. How insignificant are the things of this world when considered in reference to the gulf in which they are plunged, at the close of the pilgrimage of human kind! and how little should we be attached to the things beneath the skies!"

"Man wants but little here below." I paused,

"Nor wants that little long," was repeated by a rough voice from one corner of the ruin. I started from my reverie, and saw a figure standing at the entrance of the priory, where there was just light enough to discern

its form; by the large hat, the basket | to repeat the latter end of that pason one arm, the staff in the other sage, which you caught me reciting." hand, and the wooden leg, I soon re"Ah!" said the old man, hastily cognized old Adam Earnest, a man wiping away the tear which came into who for some years has travelled this, his eye, "that was taught me by one, his native county, with ballads and who is dead and gone.”—“ Alas, poor other wares. Adam was formerly a sai- Yorick!" thought I.-" Master, conlor, and had fought under Lord Howe, tinued Adam, "I came to tell you at the decisive victory gained over the about him. You have often asked French, on June 1st, 1794. Here he me, who it was who wrote the ballad lost a leg, and retired upon a small of The Sailor's Home:' it was written pension. Unwilling, however, to re- by this man; he lived down in the main idle, he continues to this day to bottom, to the west of the town, in a be a celebrated dealer, (as a Scotch- little hut which he and I built togeman here observed,) in " lining for ther. I'll tell you how I got acquaintsaul and body." It has been hinted to ed with him. me, that some of Adam's articles, of the latter description, are procured from some gentlemen who occasionally visit the neighbouring coast, and who have acquired the very impolite appellation of "SMUGGLERS." Be that as it may, as I am neither a housekeeper nor custom-house officer, I do not think it my business to inquire into the subject, although it is a practice too common in this neighbourhood, and which frequently meets with my severe reprehension.

To return to the subject; I immediately went up to the old man, and accosted him; he returned my salute, and after observing that it was a fine evening, inquired how it was that I constantly liked to retire to such a dismal place. "Why do you call it dismal, Adam?" said I.-"Indeed Master West," said he, "I have heard of very queer sights that have been seen here; and to tell the truth, I was not much in the mind to come up here myself."-" Surely," returned I," Adam, you do not fear such things as have been seen here, you who have stood the enemy's cannon, nor been afraid, though you saw your shipmates falling on every side.".

But," replied the old man, "there is no need to expose one's self to what is worse than guns, or powder, or any thing else of the kind."-"That is to say, Adam, that I expose myself.""Why really, master, I don't mean to offend you, and perhaps you may be able to say something to frighten appearances away; but if I were you, I think I should rather walk up by the Hall, or down to Treelsick, or any where rather than here."

"Well, Adam," said I. "I am much obliged to you for your advice, but I want to know how you were able

"One day coming along by the side of the river, I saw a man sitting on a little rock there, with his head on his hand; he was well dressed, and so as I passed, and he looked up, I put my hand to my hat: he leaped from his seat, looked at me very earnestly, put his hand in his pocket, and pulled out some money, which he would have given me, but I would not take it; he then took my hand, looked at me again, and then at the river. At last I summoned up courage to ask him, what he wanted. sad, dropped my hand, folded his arms, and turned away. 'I want every thing,' said he, at last. Have you no house, Sir, said I.-'No,' said he, No house, no home, no friends.' I felt very queer, Sir," continued Adam. "I took him home to my cot, and he slept in my own bed, and the next day we built this hut." "And how long is it ago since this took place?" inquired I. "Two years,

He looked very

"Last

last September," said Adam. Thursday (observed he) I was at his hut, and he was very ill: I asked him if I should go for the doctor; but he said, 'No.' Now Master West, I know something about such things, for when I was aboard the Brunswick, I sometimes helped the doctor there, and my old mother, poor soul, knew a great deal about herbs; so I went out into the fields, and gathered some for poor Oliver, (for that was what he called himself,) and I boiled them up, and gave them to him, and I think they did him some good; I was then forced to go up to the Eastward, and was absent till last night late. I went to see the poor gentleman this morning again: he was very ill-he took my hand-(I shall never forget it)-he took my hand-he could scarcely speak