had attained, where the huge precipice sinks abruptly down on the wide and tempestuous ocean," and the effects are still visible."

The face of that lofty cape is composed of the soft and crumbling stone called sand-flag, which gradually yields to the action of the atmosphere, and becomes split into large masses, that hang loose upon the verge of the precipice, and, detached from it by the fury of the tempests, often descend with great fury to the vexed abyss which lashes the foot of the rock. Numbers of these huge fragments lie strewed beneath the rocks from which they have descended, and amongst these the tide foams and rages with a fury peculiar to these latitudes.

At the period when Mertoun and his son looked from the verge of the precipice, the wide sea still heaved and swelled with the agitation of the yesterday's storm, which had been far too violent to subside speedily. The tide therefore poured on the headland with a fury deafening to the ear, and dizzying to the eye, threatening instant destruction to whatever might be at the time involved in its current. The sight of nature in her

magnificence, or in her beauty, or in her terrors, has at all times an overpowering interest, which even habit cannot greatly weaken; and both father and son sate themselves down on the cliff to look out upon that unbounded war of waters, which rolled in their wrath to the foot of the precipice.

At once Mordaunt, whose eyes were sharper, and probably his attention more alert than that of his father, started up and exclaimed, “God in Heaven! there is a vessel in the Roost."

Mertoun looked to the north-westward, and an object was visible amid the rolling tide. “She shews no sail," he observed; and immediately added, after looking at the object through his spy-glass," She is dismasted, and lies a sheerhulk upon the water."

"And is drifting on the Sumburgh-head,” said Mordaunt, struck with horror, "without the slightest means of weathering the cape."

"She makes no effort," replied his father; "she is probably deserted by her crew."

"And in such a day as yesterday," replied Mordaunt, "when no open boat could live were

she manned with the best men ever handled an

oar all must have perished.'

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"It is most probable," said his father, with stern composure; and one day, sooner or later, all must have perished. What signifies whether the fowler, whom nothing escapes, caught them up at one swoop from yonder shattered deck, or whether he clutched them indidividually, as chance gave them to his grasp? What signifies it?-the deck, the battle-field, are scarce more fatal to us than our table and our bed; and we are saved from the one, merely to drag out a heartless and wearisome existence, till we perish at the other. Would the hour were come that hour which reason would teach us to wish for, were it not that nature has implanted the fear of it so strongly within us! You wonder at such a reflection, because life is yet new to you. Ere you have attained my age, it will be the familiar companion of your. thoughts."

Surely, sir," replied Mordaunt," such distaste to life is not the necessary consequence of advanced age?”

"To all who have sense to estimate that which it is really worth," said Mertoun. "Those who, like Magnus Troil, possess so much of the animal impulses about them, as to derive pleasure from sensual gratification, may perhaps, like the animals, feel pleasure in mere existence.”

Mordaunt liked neither the doctrine nor the example. He thought a man who discharged his duties towards others as well as the good old udaller, had a better right to have the sun shine fair on his setting, than that which he might derive from mere insensibility. But he let the subject drop; for to dispute with his father, had always the effect of irritating him; and again he adverted to the condition of the wreck.

The hulk, for it was little better, was now in the very midst of the current, and drifting at a great rate towards the foot of the precipice, upon whose verge they were placed. Yet it was a long while ere they had a distinct view of the object which they had at first seen as a black speck amongst the waters, and then at a nearer distance, like a whale, which now scarce shews its back-fin above the waves, now throws to view

its huge black side. Now, however, they could more distinctly observe the appearance of the ship, for the huge swelling waves which bore it forward to the shore, heaved it alternately high upon the surface, and then plunged it into the trough or furrow of the sea. She seemed a vessel of two or three hundred tons, fitted up for defence, for they could see her port-holes. She had been dismasted probably in the gale of the preceding day, and lay water-logged on the waves, a prey to their violence. It appeared certain, that the crew, finding themselves unable either to direct the vessel's course, or to relieve her by pumping, had taken to their boats, and left her to her fate. All apprehensions were therefore unnecessary, so far as the immediate loss of human lives was concerned; and yet it was not without a feeling of breathless awe that Mordaunt and his father beheld the vesselthat rare masterpiece by which human genius aspires to surmount the waves, and contend with the winds, upon the point of falling a prey to them.

Onward it came, the large black hulk seeming larger at every fathom's length. She came