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to close the dreadful scene: it struck the ship-the rending timbers separated, carrying away that part of the stern where the sufferers were lash'd I saw no more and recollect but little, except the horrid crash and the gurgling of waters in my ears, mingled with groans and shrieks. When I recovered. I found myself laying on an old sail in a fishing vessel. They had observed me clinging to part of the floating wreck, and at imminent risk to themselves had pick'd me up. Three

others were likewise saved, a soldier and two sailors-all, all the rest had perished! We had struck upon those dangerous sunken rocks on the coast of France, called the Saints, several miles from land, and where many a gallant ship and hardy Tar have mingled their timbers together--and those sweet girls, too-but they are happy, Sir, they are happy in another and a better world, where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest.

(Blackwood's Mag.)

A TRAVELLER'S WEEK.

Monday-Dover. ROUSED out of a dreary doze

the fruits of last night's surfeit of tough mutton and brandy port-by the waiter, with the intelligence that the Steam-boat was just going off.-Started from bed, in an agony of nervous hurry-Put a posse of porters, waiters, and chambermaids, in requisition to bundle me off-Rushed down to the pier, with the whole clan at my heels, and every eye in the town turned on my flight-reached the shore time enough to see the packet under easy sail.-Paid half the passage for a boat to take me five hundred yards, and was at last trundled on board unshaved and half-dressed, "unanointed and unareled," to cool my pores in a raw, foggy breeze.

The deck crowded with spruce Londoners and their ladies, feathered and flounced for a water-party.--Chagrined to the soul, and attempting to get rid of my discomfort by contempt of the whole set. Took out my pencil, and attempted a caricaturesketched an alderman and a half-pay officer in strong dispute on the National debt-fine contrast of figure, pursy pride, and meagre pertinacity; fat, contented ignorance, and ignorance neither the one nor the other-turtle beside ration soup. The Prior and the Laybrother in the Duenna; Lambert and Romeo's seller of mandragora -Weather delightful.-Sea smooth as my lady's mirror.-Wondered that I had not been bred to the navy.-Began to think

of a course of voyages for the next dozen years.-Undetermined whether to commence with the east or the west, Botany Bay or Buenos-Ayres, China or Chili-determined on China as the longest voyage. Reprobated the folly of looking for the north-west passage, as tending to shorten the indulgence of living on ship-board.-Waited half an hour for passengers-Cursed, in the fervour of my delight, the wretched habit of lingering till the last momentand resolved in future to rise with the sun.--Dover Castle magnificent-tints of time, silvery lights, verdurous clething; heard a Cockney compare it to an old woman wrapped up in a rug. Cast a look at the fellow that ought to have annihilated him. The Castle certainly not unlike an old woman, after all. Resumed my caricature, and put the Cockney into the group.

Completely at sea-the Castle sinking-a breeze-pearly fringe in the surge-groans from below, with frequent calls for the steward. Determined not to be sick. Saw several of the dead and wounded brought up for fresh air, and several of the living suddenly plunged into the cabin.-Those detestable steam-vessels roll worse than a sailing boat-they bore the surge instead of sliding over it--a heavy seapostponed my caricature---doubted whether a peculiar native configuration of stomach, a something different to that of a being born to live on land, as much as webbed feet are from human

toes, a sort of amphibious or fishy in- been seen in France before-passports terior, is not to be found on dissection in every "able seaman."

Surrounded by officers drooping over the sides of the vessel like fowls in a coop-endeavouring to hum a song of Dibdin's-confounded nonsense, a sea song under any circumstances--as well dance quadrilles in an hospitaldare not look at the deck, nor at the sky, nor at the water. Determined to go to China by land-more variety of scenery, Tartary, the Great Wall, &c. -shun Euxines and Caspians-and wait till Wolgas and Dnipers were frozen over. A merciless brute order ed his lunch close at my side-ham, brandy, and biscuit-a meal for Alecto, Megæra, and Tisiphone-How the devil can anybody think of eating or enjoyment on board a packet? The ship tossing and jumping from side to side like an unbroken horse-desparately sick-torture-red-hot grappling irons-cantharides-soup, &c.

Dieppe.

The port in sight-windmills sprawling like gigantic spiders-church-spires with saints impaled upon the topsyellow roofs spreading below them, ragged and dingy, like a gipsy's encamp ment-all squalidness, stench, and clamour.

Flung upon the pier, roped into an enclosure like negroes at market-to prevent intercourse with the native smugglers. Surrounded and surveyed in all our abomination by all the loungers of the place, in full dress and high merriment-marched under the yoke to the Custom-house to be searched for lace, veils, ribbons, &c.-A battle with a virago to prevent my valise from being clawed away under pretence of porterage.-The Customhouse--the whole party passed deliberately under the secular arm-every cranny of my costume keenly probed by a veteran official, who must have been bred a thief. Surprise expressed at my pocket-handkerchief-which was hauled up to the Chef de Douane, to ascertain its use-a family arrested for having a pair of salt-spoons in their baggage-supposed a cover for conspiracy-nothing of the kind having

demanded-mine forgotten in my hurry at Dover-ordered under surveil lance-marched to a hotel by a gendarme-the crowd honouring me with an escort-and the appellations of "Traitre !-Monstre!-Coquin-Anglais," &c.

Too sick to dress-determined on seclusion and books for the day-looked over the bill of fare-a bill of mortality-bile and indigestion under a hundred shapes-puzzled with vapid superfluity-left the choice to the waiter-fell into a dose, with my elbows on the table-roused by the coming in of dinner-felt stiff, cold, benumbed from head to foot-the solitary lord of a dozen dishes, that might have been and ass skins-no appetite-The soup so many compilations of boiled cats hot water and horse-beans-the fowl tough, rancid, and impregnable-the parsley and butter hemlock and oilthe tarts lard, saw-dust, and blackberries-the parmesan granite and ping-the wine last year's vinegar.sand-stone-the fruits green and gri

Bah! La cuisine Française."Went to bed-bed and blankets a bale of horse-hair, covered with sheep-skinlay down in submission to my fate, and prepared for suffocation-Arrival of the Paris diligence-every quadruped and biped in the house and the street in sudden commotion-sleep impossible-sprang out of bed on the stonefloor-chilled as if I had sprung into a cold bath--shivering from head to foot

slunk into bed again, and tried to recover my doze.-The diligence going off-another uproar of dogs, waiters, chambermaids, donkeys, passengers clamouring for drams and great-coats, &c.-The diligence moving off with the heave and rattle of an earthquake

Feverish and restless-incapable of sleep; and fretting myself still more by the miserable old woman tricks for alluring it-counting a thousand, humming some air hackneyed by boardingschools and barrel-organs-recounting the signs of the inns-repeating one of Sir J.'s stories, &c.-Morning-the sun-rising-frowsy as a Frenchwoman before breakfast-dropped into a doze

haunted by recollections of the voy

age-sea-sickness, Custom-house officers, Cockneys, and conger-eels, rushing round my defenceless head in full ery, mouthing, and moving on wings, fins, and claws-" Griffons dire.". Wake late in the day-hot, cold, comfortless, irritable in every pore-attempted to scold the waiter for break fast in his own tongue-miserable work-the man obsequious; but frequently adjourning outside the door to laugh-called for newspapers-French too small-contains nothing--English, a huge hotchpotch, a mass of heavy absurdities-politics and pomade; reviewing and robbery; Parliamentary debates and Doctor Solomon-jokes from Joe Millar; and wit, honesty, and patriotism, from the Whigs Threw it away in disgustLiberty of the press-liberty of nonsense! The size of an English newspaper, like the size of St. Luke's, a monstrous libel on the common sense of the nation.

gration,-thrust my head out of the window-those cursed casements, that one can scarcely open, and can never shut ;

the night bitter as a blast from an ice-house-a spout over my head suddenly let loose, and playing away like a fountain,-a dozen lights twinkling down the street-lamps in a sepulchre

whips cracking, dogs baying, postillions sacre dieuing. His Serene Highness-die Furst-of some German village, was entering the gates of this fortunate town, and was coming to honour this still more fortunate hotel with his presence-I determined to quit my lodgings by day-break.

Tuesday.-Winter in all its virgin fancies;" wind, cold, fog, and rain-Chained to the house-A fêteThe bells discharging regular vollies throughout the day-All the waiters occupied, either in attending his Serene Highness, or in looking at those who did-The hope of breakfast consequently "a hope deferred"--At Overhauled my valise-my best suit length succeeded in tearing down my utterly undone-saturated with sea- bell-cord-No resource but to roar water, that has dyed the "blue one from the stairs, in the midst of a rush red," and more or less incarnadined of moist, penetrating air, that might every inch of my wardrobe-Sent for have turned a mill-Fortunate enough, a scourer, tailor, laundress, &c.-all when in the extremity of famine, to lingering till I lost the fragment that rouse the attention of one of the suborremained of the day, and ali coming to- dinate monsters of the kitchen, a “fat, gether-inhuman confusion of tongues foolish scullion," directly transferred -headach-sent for a doctor-was vi- from Mr. Shandy's scullery-My sited by a spruce practitioner in Bru- breakfast administered by this nakedtus' head, a rose-coloured coat, a pair legged Hebe, a moving heap of rags of white gloves, and smelling all over and repulsion of every kind.--Weather of jonquille, attar, and other sickening thickening-called for my bill-asand overpowering essences-gave my- tonished by its exaction-resolved the self up to be drenched with raisin sooner to escape its authors-sallied ptisarmes and rhubarb soup-prohibit- out, plunged, in a state of desperation, ed to eat or drink-called for a book into the storm that seemed to come one brought after vexatious delay, and from all points of the compass at once, the exhaustion of all my French in the a regular typhoon-Succeeded at length entreaty-that one the French Calen- in forcing an entrance into a logement dar for the year, containing the titles meuble, a dreary disconsolate receptaof the reigning family at full length, cle; but no other resource-My bagwith their ancestry from Faramond-gage conveyed piecemeal, from the Dragged over its pages-wondered what folly could induce a man of any brains to quit his fireside for foreign noise, solitude, dirt, and discomfort. Roused by a thunder of the Cathedral bells, followed by all the minor cloches of the town,-hoped that there was a general insurrection, or general confla

sudden avidity of the whole household of the hotel to serve me had every grinning and grimacing soul of them to get rid of by a separate douceur, in consequence-shut them all out at length, and myself in-Ordered a fire; wood incombustible-laboured at the bellows myself for an hour or two, with

no other effect than that of blistering my hands and embittering my remorse at having left the land of coal-fires and comfort.-Night-Asked for a book But one in the house-The French Calendar!--Wished, in the spirit of vexation and Nero, that all the copies had been in that one, that I might have flung it into the fire. Read it over notwithstanding, through mere weariness-beginning at the end for the sake of novelty.-Poked, blew, and fretted till bed time.-Resolved never to get up again, till I returned to England. Bulls the natural language of eloquent minds under strong circum

stances.

279

continued but with the certainty of sudden death, sat down exhaustedfell asleep in my chair-awoke, after a long and wretched interval, crushed and chilled all over-the lamp gone out, the fire gone out, the waiters gone to bed-the principle of life extinct around me.-Crept to my couch, and shivered into morn.

Thursday.-A burst of sunshine. All the world in the streets. gulphed in a whirlpool of English-all Entelling me and each other that it was sunshine.

combined air of the East and WestThe male loungers affecting the the slang of the city with the dress of May Fair. The women, attired loose as Venus rising from the waters, and compensating for the display of their persons by their deformity. Sick of the eternal sound of the English patois,

display--a narrow neck of rough stone, The Pier! the favourite place of infested by the low-water smells, fragWednesday.-Woke before dawn-ments of crabs, cray fish, and usual Weather decidedly fixed-a July win- nameless and horrible exuviœ of a ter; made up my mind for silence and French town. sufferance. The market opening within a yard of my window-a rolling of carts from day-break, succeeded by a perpetual explosion of voices, fierce with all the barbarous dialects of Normandy. A Basbreton, with the throat of a speaking trumpet, opening shop under my nose, and hailing for custom. Spent the day in revolving from win- followed a French nymphlike form, dow to window-looking for the sun in close conversation with an old among clouds thick as "the blanket Chevalier de St. Louis-spurred inof the dark;" playing with a kitten to full speed to get a view of her face that honoured me with a visit; read- walked myself out of breath, and ing the non-entity of a French paper; succeeded. Saw the jaws of my old practising at push-pin-Invented a Parisian friend, the Marchioness of new and infallible push. Measuring Passetemps, a septuagenaire, who the dimensions of the chamber, from introduced me to the Chevalier, her side to side, end to end, circularly, di- son! Determined to trust the phyagonally-with diligent feet-Taking siognomy of a Frenchwoman's back up the French Calendar!!-nothing no more. new any longer discoverable.-Ringing a dozen times for the English papers, letters, &c.; at last informed that it was not post-day. Went through the whole of the wretched resources for the aimgeance-abandoned all hope. Saw the market-place even desertedmissed its noise, and wished for its mob back again.

Probing every cupboard in the room -found an old flute-overjoyed-commenced regular practice the instrument cracked from stem to stern-toiled away, however, and completed "God save the King," at the expense of nearly blowing out my lungs.-ConScions that this pleasure could not be

Roused from my contemplations by a dash of rain.—The whole promenade put to the rout on the instant, French and English-rushing back, horse, foot, and artillery, draggled and bedeviled, to their lodgings.—Cursed La Belle France, and engaged myself in the first steam-packet that was to boil away from this land of disappointment and deluge.

Friday.-Mail arrived.-A letter from my wife, telling me that London was basking in serenity and the perpetual sun; that the whole family had caught the typhus, and that I must not return till farther orders. No letter from my banker-despondingly shook

the half-dozen sovereigns lingering in my purse, and thought of the alternative of flight or famine. Went to the library-all the newspapers engaged ten deep-Lord E. reading three at a time-Sir J. with one under his arm, and the other in his paw-Alderman S. grasping the only remaining onecommenting on it as he stumbled from paragraph to paragraph, and at last hitching in a dissertation on the new loan. Mixed in an expectant group. ---Bewildered with the jargon of coffeehouse politicians, all contradictory, and all common-place.-Tired to death, and retreating to the door for fresh air, and a cessation of tongues.

nances, nor-Anywhere else, the absurdity might have passed; but to burst out with a song of that kind at the Bishop of London's table. full of dignitaries, gave as-George Selwyn, Joe Millar, and Jack Bannister, and Monsieur Alexandre, dressed up as dowagers in-The Queen's business, the most generous and striking display of English boobyism, blindness, and gullibility, since the-Birth of Whiggery--an Incubus generated in a Scotch garret, and then transmitted at the-Instigation of the devil, and without having the fear of God before—

The Edinburgh Review, a great—; Molehill, my dear sir, and nothing but a molehill;-a blind-Borough, rotten to the core-the receptacle of-Every species of vermin killed by-Quarterly instalments, paid under the head of

er firm, but sure as-Any team of asses from Mount Jura to--Mount Charles, a showy young --Lord Seven's the Main; certain to win-just bought the-Hotel, most fashionable situation in the metropolis-To be fitted up in the handsomest style for the accommodation of ladies whose situation requires a temporary_retirement--And the Duchess of R-d-decidedly the most showy figure at Almack's, a brilliant, blooming-Maiden-ray of the largest dimensions, that would turn the -Peristaltic region of-Alderman Curtis, that fine, jovial, old-Turtle, cooing like-Lord and Lady Westmeath, and-Several other married persons of distinction at this moment in-Doctors' Commons-a perpetual-Libel on English decency and the connubial -Tie of Lord Ellenborough's cravat a

Still haunted by the echo, and overhearing the nonsense, quilted in such patches and fragments as these." Nothing more about the King of SpainA poor devil of a pickpocket dragged Gifford, Southey, and Co., a youngabout and ducked within an inch of his life by a rascally mob of-Placemen and Pensioners crying out-Candleends and cheese-parings, the ruin of official honesty, and-Lord George gone to Portugal, to fight the French, with d-d bad poem as ever was printed by Murray-the family name of the great Lord Mansfield, and-The man with the nose, who broods somewhere about-Hampstead, a favourite haunt of the Cockney rhymestersPetty larceny rogues, stealing lines from laundresses, and hazarding their -Sheep's brains, ten pounds of fat each, fit to be swallowed--only by a Hottentot-Embassador to the Pope, as great a novelty as-Plunkett's conscience pitted against his place.-No fight whatever, after all! a miserable draw-The tight Irish lad-Humbug and hodge podge-Old and dry as my grandmother, not a word of sense, nor a grain of honesty in the whole compilation of The Common Council. Why, what the deuce more can men do? they-Eat the best turtle and drink the best claret at any--Cathedral in the kingdom-Crowded with-The most magnificent old wigs, gowns, bands of broomsticks, and other remnants of The Levee-a gathering of ---Antiquated pictures, black as Beelzebub with varnish, and beyond all vamping; no character in their counte

Phenomenon of the first magnitude, and unequalled by anything butLord Petersham's whiskers; remarkable for-Specimens of red hair turned blue by the use of the Macassar oil and

Bishop Magee's conciliatory charge to the Papists; a splendid, powerful, and original-Contrivance for tearing up pavements, and converting them into missiles for the annoyance ofCoach-panes and window-glass of the ordinary size shivered as by the explosion of Bitter ballads sung out of tune by breechless mendicants at the

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