man-are wanting; but it does not follow that, though these are absent, the prospect should either be tedious or uninviting; these are not essential to an attractive scene. I give them all their due; I give them, in their place, my warmest admiration. But I must still maintain, that even on the face of the deep, far away from all the loveliness of the vegetable world, there is much to attract and much to admire; and that he who possesses a mind capable of admiring Nature in any of her forms, will find enough to interest it there. It is there that the great orb of the day is seen, in all his splendour, slowly to rise from the bed of the ocean, and after travelling his course through the cloudless heavens, in the evening, to sink again into the wave; and as he slowly measures his course, and his bright beams, dancing on the bosom of the playful ocean, have gilded the surface of the green rippling wave, and the whole space of æther is touched with his splendour and serenity, surely there is much of beauty in the scene. It is there, in the tropical region, that when the bright luminary has finished his course and just gone down, and his beams, still darted upward from the deep, have tinted, in all the variety of colour, the clouds that occasionally rest on the verge of the horizon, a scene is produced, lovelier by far than any that is to be found in the whole circle of nature. And though it lasts but for a littlethough the beams are soon gone, and the scene dies-yet, when the Queen of Night has taken her place in the heavens, and the stars, spread out upon the wide concave, are all sparkling and burning around her while the meteor is giving forth its occasional blaze-another not less pleasing is brought forward. And he that, in the quiet hour of the night, when nought is to be heard, save the gentle murmur of the breeze, and the grateful noise of the bubbling wave, as the vessel, steadily pursuing her course, turns it aside and cuts her way through the deep,and, perhaps, the voice of the seaman upon watch, as, to chase the lingering hour, he paces the deck, and converses with his comrade, or chants at the cheering, patriotic, or love ditty, he, I say, that can contemplate at such an hour without delight-he that would give his imagination play upon such a scene, and yet say that his emotion did not rise with the contemplation of it: that he could not dwell upon it with increasing delight, even till it disappeared-I pronounce him not to be alive to the charms of nature; he knows not how to estimate her beauties at all. Nor should we complain that the scene remains the same; for, occasionally, it is indeed wonderfully and grandly changed. "There was a tempest brooding in the air, Nature, as if wearied of her long-continued smiling aspect, puts it aside for a time, and appears in her wildest and most striking attire. The golden day and the spangled night disap pear. Dark lowering clouds gather and roll, and sweep along the vault of heaven, and by and by cover the whole concave. The gentle breeze begins to gather strength, and the farspread sea loses its gently-undulating surface; above, beneath, all around, Nature has hung her dark portending mantle. And now the clouds, which threatened, burst, and send down deluges of rain. And now another element comes in with its awful aid flash follows, in quick succession, flash of the vivid lightning, and peal comes after peal of the rolling thunder. The mighty blast sweeps along, and every moment increases; while the convulsed sea, rolling with the most terrific fury, seems ready to whelm and bury for ever, in its yawning gulf, the struggling diminutive bark. The whole elements seem engaged in some terrible trial; there seems to be a mustering up of their whole force, a striving, as it were, who shall send forth the greatest strength, and gain the mastership; and some dread event. -destruction-ruin-seems at hand. And then, indeed, may he whose delight it is to contem plate the grand workings of Nature-the various and arresting operations of the Almighty—find a theme well fitted to occupy him. Then may he of the wild and solitary mind, whose affections are not with men, nor with the enjoyments of social life, but whose occupation is to look for ever with the eagle eye of musing and searching curiosity, and eagerly to grasp at whatever is outré or attractive in the wide range of creation,give full scope to his moody imagination. Like the bard, whose delight it was "to retire from his companions, and bury himself in the recesses of his native woods, or to ascend some eminence during the agitations of nature; to stride along the summit while the lightnings flashed around him, and, midst the howling of the tempest, to apostrophize the spirit of the storm" may we find enough to attract-enough upon which to exert all the energies of mind-in such an awful and striking scene. "Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain ; |