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some how or other I never could relish the sublime much when it interfered materially with my personal comforts; and am unromantic enough to own that I would rather be seated snugly in a decent inn at the foot of a Swiss mountain than identify myself with the icicles at the top of it; so, in a storm I hold it to be a better thing to go below, doff your drenched garments, fix your berth so that you cannot roll an inch either one way or the other, and quietly betake yourself to the arms of Morpheus, rather than stand gaping at the unceremonious ocean, who repays your sincere admiration in a very unhandsome manner by throwing cold water in your face,

No-the sea, whether in storm or calm, or enveloped in fog, or in its most favorable state curled with a fresh fair breeze, has few attractions to those who spend more than six hours upon it at a time. Our captain, an old sailor, declared that every day he passed there he considered a blank in his existence. What is there in this be-praised element to give pleasure? In crossing the Atlantic all your amusements are not such as are connected with the sea, but such as serve to draw your attention from it. Chess or drafts, backgammon or cards, are the resources called in to while away the tedious hours; for after you have seen one of mo

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ther Carey's chickens, a shoal of porpoises, a shark, and a whale, you have seen about all that is to be At first, like other landsmen, I was very desee a whale;" but I soon found that, according to the laws of optics, a porpoise alongside of the ship was just as large and as good a sight as a whale half a mile off, which is about as near as they generally venture; while all you mostly see of the rascally sharks is a fin, or the ridge of a brown back peeping above the water. The eye tires of even the finest prospect; but here you are compelled to gaze day after day on water and sky, and all that can be said of the latter is, that it is very blue and that there is a great quantity of it.

It may be thought from this that I am no friend or admirer of the sea; but few like it more than I do on the land, the only place, I believe, where people really fall in love with it. Nothing can be finer than to live in a highly cultivated tract of country merely separated from the sea-coast by a high range of sand-hills. The change in the scenery is so instantaneous, and so complete-so very different, yet both so surpassingly beautiful, for few things can excel, in picturesque effect, a bold and animated line of coast. How freshening it is in the summer time, after roaming through orchards, meadows,

and cornfields, to cross the barren sand-hills and find yourself on the lone sea-beach, with no human being within sight or hearing. How pleasant to roam to some favorite spot and there lie and watch the clear sparkling tide come rolling in over the smooth sand, forcing its way swiftly up a hundred tiny channels to dream over again all the wild legends of the mighty element before youthe storm the battle and the wreck, and the hairbreadth escapes of those who have been cast away upon it-to be lulled to slumber by the murmur of the slight waves breaking upon the shore, and making most sweet yet drowsy music in your ear-this is delightful; and I have even enough of the hardihood of boyhood to love it in its rougher moodson a raw and gusty November day, when the seagull comes screaming to the cliffs for shelter, when the wave bursts in thunder at your feet, and the thick fog is whirled from the water like smoke by the tempest-on such a day there is something far from unpleasant in standing on terra firma and watching its manœuvres. Besides, it is such a glorious preparative for a warm, comfortable fireside and a hearty supper-but from passing any length of time on it in ships, or other smaller vessels called, for unknown reasons, pleasure-boats,

evidently shows that the view of the place of punishment before him has not made any impression on the mind of the speaker in regard to his own ulterior prospects. If the stage at present actually shows "the very age and body of the time, its form and pressure," the millenium is much further off than many people suppose.

EDITORIAL COURTESIES.

“I must speak in a passion, and I will do it in King Cymbyses' vein."-Shakspeare.

IF Socrates, or any other sensible ancient, could be resuscitated, and have half-a-dozen flaming rhapsodies on the benefits and blessings of the "press," put into his hands, what a glorious and mighty change would he suppose had taken place in the ordering of public affairs, since the time when the Athenian rabble were led by the nose by every noisy demagogue who chose to spout nonsense to them in their market-places. How the good man's heart would be filled with rejoicing as he read glowing descriptions of the tremendous capabilities of this mighty engine, wielded solely for the benefit of mankind, and of its unwearied exertions to disseminate useful information and correct knowledge of political events to the meanest citizen of the state! He would suppose, that with this almost

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