should there be but one righteous person on board!"-And the old reaper rose, and stretched out his hands in supplication as he spoke. The ship came boldly down the middle of the bay, the masts bending and quivering, and the small deck crowded with busy men, who looked wistfully to the coast of Cumberland. "She is the Lady Johnstone of Annanwater," said one, "coming with wood from Norway." "She is the Buxom Bess of Allanbay," said another, "laden with the best of West India rum.' "And I," said the third old man, "would have thought her the Mermaid of Richard Faulder-but," added he, in a lower tone, "the Mermaid has not been heard of, nor seen, for many months;-and the Faulders are a doomed race:-his bonny brig and he are in the bottom of the sea; and with them sleeps the pride of Cumberland, Frank Forster of Derwentwater." The subject of their conversation approached within a couple of miles, turned her head for Allanbay, and, though the darkness almost covered her as a shroud, there seemed every chance that she would reach the port ere the tempest burst. But just as she turned for the Cumbrian shore, a rush of wind shot across the bay, furrowing the sea as hollow as the deepest glen, and heaving it up masthead high. The cloud too dropt down upon the surface of the sea, the winds, loosened at once, lifted the waves in multitudes against the cliffs; and the foam fell upon the reapers, like a shower of snow. The loud chafing of the waters on the rocks, prevented the peasants from hearing the cries of men whom they had given up to destruction. At length the wind, which came in whirlwind gusts, becoming silent for a little while, the voice of a person singing, was heard from the sea, far above the turbulence of the waves. William Selby uttered a shout, and said Old "That is the voice of Richard Faulder, if ever I heard it in the body. He is a fearful man, and never sings in the hour of gladness, but in the hour of danger-terror and death are beside him when he lifts his voice to sing. This is the third time I have listened to his melody--and many mothers will weep and maidens too, if his song have the same ending as of old." The voice waxed bolder, and approached the shore; and, as nothing could be discerned, so thick was the darkness, the song was impressive, and even awful. THE SONG OF RICHARD FAULDER. It's merry, it's merry, among the moonlight, To spread the white sails of my vessel and go And it's blythesomer still, when the storm is come on, In huge and dark curls-and the shaven masts groan, When the dark heaven stoops down unto the dark deep, Awaken and see, ye who slumber and sleep, The might of the Lord on the ocean! This frail bark, so late growing green in the wood, As the voice ceased, the ship appeared, through the cloud, approaching the coast in full swing; her sails rent, and the wave and foam flashing over her, mid-mast high. The maiden, who has already been introduced to the affection of the reader, gazed on the ship, and, half suppressing a shriek of joy, flew down to the shore, where the cliffs, sloping backwards from the sea, presented a ready landing place, when the waves were more tranquil than now. Her fellowreapers came crowding to her side, and looked on the address and hardihood of the crew,-who, with great skill and success, navigated their little bark through, and among the sand-banks, and sunken rocks, which make the Solway so perilous and fatal to seamen. At last they obtained the shelter of a huge cliff, which, stretching like a promontory into the sea, broke the impetuosity of the waves, and afforded them hopes of communicating with their friends, who, with ropes and horses, were seen hastening to the shore. own endeavours or the intrepid ex-- "God guide me, Maud Marchbank," cried William Selby,-" ye'll drown the poor lad out of pure love. back, and shaking the brine from his cloaths, "I am the mad person myself-a caress and a kiss from young Frank of Derwentwater is making her comfortable enough.-Alas, but youth be easily pleased-it is as the northern song says Contented wi' little and cantie wi' mair'; but old age is a delightless time!" But, although Richard Faulder, and his Mermaid, were now little more than a cable-length distant from the land, the peril of their situation seemed little lessened. The winds had greatly abated, but the sea, with that impulse communicated I think," continued he, stepping by the storm,-threw itself against the rocks, elevating its waters high over the summits of the highest cliffs, and leaping and foaming_around the bark, with a force that made her reel and quiver, aud threatened to stave her to pieces.The old and skilful mariner himself, was observed, amid the confusion and danger, as collected and selfpossessed as if he had been entering the bay in the tranquillity of a summer evening, with an hundred hands waving and welcoming his return. His spirit and deliberation seemed more or less communicated to his little crew; but chiefly to Frank Forster, who, in the ardent buoyancy of youth,-moved as he moved, thought as he thought, and acted from his looks alone, as if they had been both informed with one soul. In those times, the benevolence of individuals had not been turned to multiply the means of preserving seamen's lives; and the mariner, in the hour of peril, owed his life to chance-his To moor the bark was the labour of a few moments, and fathers, and mothers, and sisters, and sweethearts, welcomed the youths they had long reckoned among the dead, with affection and tears. All had some friendly hand and eye to welcome and rejoice in them, save the brave old mariner, Richard Faulder alone. To him no one spoke, on him no eye was turned; all seemed desirous of shunning communication with a man to whom common belief attributed endowments and powers, which came not as knowledge and might come to other men,-and whose wisdom was of that kind against which the most prudent divines, and the most skilful legislators, directed the rebuke of church and law. I remember hearing my father say, that when Richard Faulder, who was equally skilful in horsemanship and navigation, of fered to stand on his gray horse's bare back, and gallop down the street of Allanbay, he was prevented from betting against the accomplishment of this equestrian vaunt, by a wary Scotchman, who, in the brief manner of his country, said, "dinna wager, Thomas God guide yere wits-that man's no cannie!"-At that time, though a stripling of seventeen, and possessed strongly with the belief of the mariner's singular powers, I could not avoid sympathizing with his fortune, and the forlorn look with which he stood on the deck, while his companions were welcomed and caressed on shore. Nothing, indeed, could equal the joy which fathers and mothers manifested towards their children, but the affection and tenderness with which they were hailed by the bright eyes of the Cumbrian maidens. "His name be praised," said one old man, to whose bosom a son had been ur expectedly delivered from the waves. "And blessed be the hour ye were saved from the salt sea, and that fearful man," said a maiden, whose blushing cheek, and brightning eye, indicated more than common sympathy. "And oh! Stephen Porter, my son," resumed the father, "never set foot on shipboard with that mariner more!" In another groupe stood a young seaman with his sister's arms linked round his neck; receiving the blessings, and the admonitions, which female lips shower so vainly upon the sterner sex :-"This is the third time Giles, thou hast sailed with Richard Faulder; and every time my alarm and thy perils encrease. Many a fair face he has witnessed the fate of, and many a fair ship has he survived the wreck of :think of the sea, since think of it thou must-but never more think of it with such a companion." In another groupe, a young woman stood gazing on a sailor's face, and, in her looks, fear and love held equal mastery. "Oh! William Rowanberry," said she, and her hand trembled with affection in his while she spoke,—" I would have held my heart, widowed for one year and a day, in memory of thee—and though there be fair lads in Ullswater, and fairer still in Allanbay,-I'll no say they would have prevailed against my regard for thee before the summer.- But I warn thee," and she whispered, waving her hand seaward, to give importance to her words,-" never be found on the great deep with that man with thee again!" Meanwhile, the subject of this singular conversation kept pacing from stem to stern of the Mermaidgazing, now and then, wistfully shoreward-though he saw not a soul with whom he might share his affections. His gray hair, and his melancholy look, won their way to my youthful regard, while his hale and stalwart frame could not fail of making an impression on one not wholly insensible to the merits of the exterior person. A powerful mind in poetical justice, should have a noble place of abode. I detached myself a little from the mass of people that filled the shore, and seeming to busy myself with some drift wood, which the storm had brought to the hollow of a small rock, I had an opportunity of hearing the old mariner chaunt, as he paced to and fro, the fragment of an old maritime ballad-part of which is still current among the seamen of Solway, along with many other singular rhymes full of marine superstition and adventure. SIR RICHARD'S VOYAGE. Sir Richard shot swift from the shore, and sailed And a voice came to him from the green land, The green sea shuddered, and he did shake, Away he sailed-and the lightning came, And spoke from the depth of the blast:- Shone bright i' the flame, as he shot from the shore. And the sea-birds sang around : He sought to land-and down sank the shores, And where the green wood and the sweet sod should be, Away he sailed-and the moon looked out, Down shot the star, and upsprang the sea-fowl, The bark with a leap, seemed the stars to sweep, Criffel's green mountain towered on his right- Behind-Caerlaverock's charmed ground- And there a witch-fire, broad and bright, A ladye sat high on Saint Bees's head, She lifted her hands to heaven-her eyes Rained down bright tears-still the shallop flies. The shallop shoulders the surge and flies,— The charmed wind fell mute nor stirred And the shallop sunders the gentle flood, And the shallop sunders the gentle flood, And the ocean, the earth, and the heaven smile sweet- While the old mariner chaunted this maritime rhyme, he looked upon me from time to time, and, perhaps, felt pleased in exciting the interest of a youthful mind, and obtaining a regard which had been but sparingly bestowed in his native land. He loosed a little skiff, and stepping into it, pushed through the surge to the place where I stood, and was in a moment beside me. I could not help gazing, with an eye reflecting wonder and respect, on a face-bold, mournful, and martial, as his was,which had braved so long "the battle and the breeze." He threw across my shoulders a mantle of leopard skin,—and said, as he walked towards his little cottage on the rock,-" Youth, I promised that mantle to the first one who welcomed me from a voyage of great peril take it, and be happier than the giver, and glad am I to be welcomed by the son of my old Captain -Randal Forster." Such were the impressive circumstances under which I became acquainted with Richard Faulder of Allanbay. Now lend an attentive ear to his romantic adventures. Lammerlea, Cumberland. ON RIDING ON HORSE-BACK. But chiefly skill to ride seems a science No. I. A BEAUTIFUL horse should be placed next to a beautiful woman in the scale of sentient beings. Man comes after :-at least, single man.When joined in wedlock, he becomes part and parcel of his wife; and then, if he is entitled to rank as an individual at all—it is next to her.-As a horse is the next best animal to a woman, so being on horse-back is the next best state to being in love. I make this distinction, because I hold the two states to be incompatible with each other-each, for the time being, necessarily displacing its rival. To be in love, and to be on horse-back, at one and the same time, is no more practicable than to be in two gardens, or enjoy two delicious flavours, or listen to two divine airs, or luxuriate in the sun-shine and the moon-light, or be a distinguished writer in Baldwin's and Blackwood's, at one and the same time.Let it not be supposed, however, that I would impugn or detract from the merit of either of these states, by insinuating that their incompatibility has regard to any thing but time. So far from it, I hold that the man, or woman, who is fond of being on horse-back, will necessarily be fond of being in love: but the spirits or whatever they may be-which rule these two "blest conditions," willingly divide the empire of the breast in which they exist-each holding undivided sway by turns: and they are better entitled to "divide the crown" than Timotheus and St. Cecilia were, for each, respectively, possesses the powers which were shared between those of old: -each can "raise a mortal to the skies ;" and each can, in more senses than one, "bring an angel down." Before we go further together, I fairly warn the reader, that I shall write these articles as I practise the subject of them-that is, pretty much at random. It will probably be a kind of Steeple-chase: so that if he is Spenser. not prepared to follow me over, and perhaps occasionally into, a few hedges and ditches, we had better part here. as He will also observe, that I have chosen to drop the periodical wE.There were obvious reasons for this. In the first place, when I'm on horseback I actually feel as good as any two; and there is no occasion to " sume a virtue" when one has it. In the next place the we would have perpetually suggested a very awkward association connected with my subject:-viz. that of two persons on one steed: a kind of arrangement not affording "entertainment for either man or horse." But the most important reason for this most important choice, was to be found in the fact, that the true and peculiar pleasure to be derived from Riding on horseback is only capable of being enjoyed alone. It is true, that an afternoon's ride with a friend is very pleasant; and there is not a more inspiriting and picturesque group to be seen in animated nature than a graceful and well-dressed woman, riding between two cavalier-looking men. But it must not be concealed, that the de lights peculiar to riding are not to be enjoyed in company. Like those derivable from Poetry, or the high mathematics, they demand the whole undivided man! They are even jealous of suffering the external objects of nature to share his thoughts with them. To saunter among green lanes on a fine sunshiny evening is soothing-to dash through the mud, along a well-frequented turnpike road, in a pelting shower, is animating-to make one's way through the intricacies of Hyde Park on a full Sunday is no doubt very pretty picking; and to canter along between the railing and the carriages,-conscious of being the (apparently) unconscious object on which bright eyes are gazing, is certainly far from being without its merits.But these are, after |