To bow around old Neptune's throne,- Deep died with human slaughter! Come!-dance and sing, my mermaids all, As this verse terminated, some wild, rapid, and discordant music was thrown off by the band, indicative of sudden interruption; and the water-sprites scattered in most admired disorder on the entrance of a huge bellowing sea-dog, with a chain about his neck, denoting that he had escaped from confinement. The chief water nymph, perched upon a clustered tuft of fan-coral, where she had taken refuge, began to exorcise the apparition in no very gentle manner, and with such sudden breaks in the music that one could hardly have believed it to be the same smooth air which had been sung to the foregoing verses. The exorcism ran thus: Thou com'st the mermaid's enemy! Now, by old Ocean! thou shalt feel A mighty flourish was given with horns, and trumpets, and fiddles, and kettle-drums, which might have inspired a host to the onslaught. But the sea-dog stood his ground, and roared like a bull, and rattled his ox-chain like a blacksmith. Nancy Dawson, as intimated in her song, here caught up a huge padlock, such as might serve to lock up a giant, or an ogre at the least; and opening the hasp, she ran towards the beast, and made a demonstration as if she would fain have fastened it to his mouth. But the animal was apparently restive, and seemed not to relish her kind intention of putting a stopper so soon upon his roarings. "Smite him on the nose !" loudly, but unconsciously, exclaimed Jethro, who well understood the manner of killing the seal species at a single blow; "smite him on the nose," repeated he, " and thou'lt do the job for him effectually, I warrant thee!" The audience again indulged in unrestrained laughter and obstreperous applause. Nancy Dawson needed but this to cap the climax of her vexation, and to determine her mode of action in the premises. She paused a moment, looked at the padlock, which she still held in her hand, and darted at her naïve tormentor “like a streak o' lightnin'." Ere he could shut his gaping jaws, she inserted the hasp in Jethro's mouth, and closed the lock upon his cheek!* And there he stood dumfounded before a Drury Lane audience-the laughing-stock of thousands, with an immense padlock dangling from his face; while the shouts, and the claps, and the loud merriment of the Londoners, and eke of his own crew, were absolutely deafening. Nancy's revenge upon Jethro was complete; and after skipping and dancing around the stage to her entire satisfaction, she suddenly stopped before him, and made a profound courtesy, exclaiming, in affected simplicity,- "Oh la, my dear sir! let me relieve you from that inconvenient burden about your cheek. I beg pardon; I protest I did not mean to be so rude. Shall I take it off, sir ?" "Do-I beg of thee," replied Jethro, leaning forward; "I find it an unseemly ornament in this goodly presence. In a twinkling the spring was pressed which had * Fact. secured the cheek-lock immoveably to his face, and Jethro stood bolt upright again, and laughed with the audience, and good-naturedly forgave the spoiled theatrical pet for her sin against propriety. But there was no more playing that night. The audience would hear no more of the "Devil and the Deep Sea," after Dr. Johnson's song and the wonderful feat of the padlock; and Nancy retired amid the deafening shouts of the house, and was received at the wings in the arms of her noble lover, with the endearing salutation of, "You wicked little devil! you have made a hit to-night that will make your fortune!" And so it turned out. Nancy Dawson was the favourite of the stage for many years; and ever after, the sailors, who remembered the scene of the padlock, used to greet her appearance with broad grins, and shouts of, "Nancy Dawson for ever!"—while the well-remembered melody of her song, known afterward only by her own name, was danced by learned horses at the circus, and whistled along the streets by the sweeps and lazaroni of the gal lery, until it became as common in the mouths of the vulgar as the beautiful airs of Cinderella and Masaniello now are after their fiftieth night. What an immortality! VOL. II.-F CHAPTER V. A plague on both your houses! Romeo and Juliet. I do not weep!-the springs of tears are dried- BYRON. THE barque of Jethro had scarcely lost sight of the island, before the first imaginings of Miriam's ambition began to be developed. She surveyed the humble range of apartments constituting her dwelling; projected alterations and improvements; and finally abandoned them, after counting the expense, and coming to the prudential conclusion that it would cost more to pull down, and refit, and rebuild, than it would to erect a new mansion from the foundation. She therefore sent for the chief builder of the town, and requested him to make out plans of a building, upon a scale of magnificence then unknown upon the island. At first he suggested a barn-like pile, with the usual tumble-down roof, and broad, unsightly gable to front the street. an approved pattern with the generality of the inhabitants, which admits of incontestable proof even unto this day. But Miriam, who had seen other houses abroad, seized her pen, and astonished the architect with her readiness at design. She first showed him the front of a double house, and gave him a sketch of the mouldings, and pilasters, and the well-imagined ornaments of the time, which were then in vogue upon the main,and this front, she said, should face the street. It was Here was an innovation that caused the honest builder to stare! The plan of the roof, too, was to him an ab solute marvel. With two strokes of the pen, Miriam indicated to him the fashion of the roof, which resembled the letter A,--only not quite so steep. The very simplicity of the design astonished the builder. What! -not have the roof to slope off behind, with a gradual concavity, until all the outhouses in the rear were covered by it, and its extremity should come almost in contact with the ground? And were the complex triple pitches of the roof, on the other side, to be discarded for a single descent? Monstrous! Yet Miriam would have it so, or not at all. She selected a pleasant site on the margin of the bay, which threw the front of the building to the north. "Gadzooks!" said the builder; "place the front towards the north !-who ever heard of such a thing before!" The accommodation of looking out upon the bay was nothing. The prevailing fashion of fronting towards the warm south (even though sand-banks should intervene to shut out the prospect) was every thing. Miriam prevailed; and the builder acquiesced. But he had his misgivings as to her sanity. Her prudence, at any rate, he believed to be clean gone. The mansion was, nevertheless, built under the eye of Miriam; and a lapse of more than half a century still finds it one of the bestlooking architectural designs upon the island. But its fine water prospect is cut off by the multitudinous dwellings and warehouses that have since grown up between it and the shore; and you must now ascend to its "walk," or terrace upon the roof, and take your station by the side of the pole supporting the weathercock, if you would look forth upon the sea. If the Moslems have their minarets at the tops of their dwellings, from which to call their neighbours to prayer at midday-so have, or rather had, the Sherburne people their "crow's-nests" at the top of theirs, to look out upon the deep in every direction, and from whence to convey the first news of a homeward-bound |