will not condescend to walk. When he is unequal to horseback, instead of taking to coach-back, or boat-back, he takes to a high-backed chair, and backgammon. What your uncle really wants is a mill to grind him young again. There is no such mill on earth, but the next best thing is to go in search of it. Take my word for it, the secret of your uncle's dying is, that he has more life in him, or steam, than the old machine knows how to get rid of." "Yes, yes," muttered my uncle, who had been musing, but caught the last sentence, "I always knew I should go off like a burst boiler!" "The Lord forbid!" ejaculated my aunt, who had been absorbed in her own steamboat speculations, and having thus, in sporting language, changed our hare, we had a burst with high pressure, that lasted for twenty minutes. At the conclusion, my aunt asked the doctor if he knew of any remedy against sea-sickness. "Only one, madam, the same that was adopted by Jack the Giant-killer against the Welsh ogre." "And what was his remedy?" inquired my aunt, very innocently. "A false stomach, ma'am ; put all you feel inclined to eat or drink into that; and I will stake my professional character against its coming up again!" Just at this juncture his lynx eyes happened to alight on the medicine-chest. "I do hope that box is insured!" "Good heavens !" exclaimed my aunt, "is there any danger? We have not insured anything!" Because," exclaimed the doctor, "if your nephew is any better than a George Barnwell in disguise, he will take the first opportunity for pitching that trash overboard." My uncle's back was up in a moment. "By your leave," he said, "I did once have occasion to call in Doctor Carbuncle in your absence, and he prescribed for me more trash, as you call it, in ten days, than you have done in as many years." "No doubt he did,” answered the imperturbable Truby. "He would send it in by the dozen, like Scotch ale or Dublin porter, or any other article on which he gets a commission. Fat bacon, for instance, was once in vogue amongst the faculty for weak digestions, and he would favor you with that or any other gammon, at a trifle above the market price." "Well, I always thought," exclaimed my aunt, "that Doctor Carbuncle was considered a very skilful man!" "As to his other medical acquirements, madam, there may be some doubts, but you have only to look in his face to see that he is well red in noseology."

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This palpable hit, for Carbuncle happens to have a very fiery proboscis, quite restored my uncle's good humor. He laughed till the tears ran down his face, and even cracked a joke of his own, on the advantage of always hunting with a burning scent. The doctor, like a good general, seized this favorable moment for his departure, and took his patient by the hand: 66 Well, bon voyage, and fine weather on the Rhine." "I shall never see it," cried my uncle, fast relapsing into a fit of hypochondriacism. "Pooh! pooh!-good by,

and a fair wind to Rotterdam."

"I shall die at sea," returned

my uncle; "at least if I reach the Nore. But mayhap I shall never get aboard. It is my belief I shan't live through the night," he bellowed after the doctor, who, foreseeing the point the argument must arrive at, had bolted out of the room and closed the door. "A clever man," said my uncle, when he was gone; "and no doubt understands my case, but as close as a fox. I only wish he would agree to my going suddenly: I should not die a bit the sooner for his giving me over.” Once more, farewell, with love to Emily from, dear Gerard, yours, &c.,

FRANK SOMERVILLE.

TO GERARD BROOKE, ESQ., LEMINGTON, HANTS.

Your prophecy was a plausible one, but as the servant girl said, after looking out of window in Piccadilly, for the Lord Mayor's show, "it did not come to pass." Instead of returning to Kent, we actually sailed from London on Wednesday morning, by the Lord Melville; and here follows a log of our memorable voyage. It will prove a long one I foresee, but so was our passage.

To believe our tourists and travellers, our Heads and our Trollopes, it is impossible to take a trip in a hoy, smack, or steamer, without encountering what are technically called characters. My first care, therefore, on getting aboard, was to look out for originals; but after the strictest scrutiny among the passengers, there appeared none of any mark or likeli

hood. However, at Gravesend, a wherry brought us two individuals of some promise. The first was a tall, very thin man. evidently in bad health, or, as one of the sailors remarked, peforming quarantine, his face being of the same color as the yellow flag which indicates that sanitary excommunication; the other was a punchy, florid, red-wattled human cock-bird, who, according to the poultry-wife's practice, had seemingly had two pepper-corns thrust down his gullet on first leaving the shell, and had ever since felt their fiery influence in his gizzard. In default of their proper names, I immediately christened them, after Dandie Dinmont's two celebrated dogs, Pepper and Mustard. I had, however, but a short glimpse of their quality, for the yellow-face went forward amongst the seamen, whilst the red-visage dived downwards towards the steward's pantry. In the mean time we progressed merrily; and had soon passed that remarkably fine specimen of sea-urchin, the buoy at the Nore. But here the breeze died off, an occurrence, before the invention of steamers, of some moment; indeed, in the old shoy-hoy times I was once at sea three days and two nights between London and Ramsgate, now a certain passage of a few hours. But now calms are annihilated, and so long as the movement party are inclined to dance, the steamengine will find them in music; in fact, I could not help associating its regular tramp, tramp, tramp, with the tune of a galoppe I had recently performed. But these musings were suddenly diverted by the appearance of one of the most startling and singular phenomena that ever came under my notice. Imagine on one side the sea, gently ruffled by a dying wind into waves of a fine emerald green, playfully sparkling in the noontide sun; on the other hand, a terrific pitch-black mass rising abruptly from sea to sky, as if visibly dividing "the warm precincts of a cheerful day," from "the dark realms of Chaos and Old Night." But I am growing poetical. Suppose, then, if you have ever been under the white Flamborough Head, a black ditto, quite as bluff and as solid, and which you might have mistaken for some such stupendous headland but for the color, and that on looking upwards you could find no summit. So strong was the impression on my own fancy, that when my aunt inquired where we were, I could not help answering, in allusion to the hue and build of the phenomenon, that we were off Blackwall. "You are right, sir," said a

B

strange voice; "I have observed the same black and wall-like appearance in the West Indies, and it was the forerunner of a hurricane." I looked for this prophet of ill-omen, and saw the yellow-faced man at my elbow. "It would be a charity," exclaimed my aunt, "to give the captain warning." "He knows it well enough," said the stranger, "and so does the steward; yonder he runs to the caboose, to tell the cook to gallop his potatoes and scorch his roasts, that he may lay his cloth before the gale comes." "A gale, eh!" mumbled the red-face, who had just climbed from below, with his mouth still full of victuals. "Why don't the captain put back?” "We have gone about once," said the yellow-face, " to run into Margate; but the master thinks, perhaps, that he can edge off, and so escape the storm, or only catch a flap with its skirts. There it comes!" and he pointed towards the black mass, now rapidly diffusing itself over the surface of the sea, which became first black, and then white beneath its shadow; whilst a few faint forks of lightning darted about between the base of the cloud and the water. The waves immediately round us had gradually subsided into a dead calm, and there was no perceptible motion but the vibration from the engine; when suddenly, with a brief but violent rush of wind, the vessel gave a deep lurch, and thenceforward indulged in a succession of rolls and heavings which took speedy effect on the very stoutest of our passengers. "Renounce me!" said he, "if I like the look of it!" "Or the feel of it, either," said a voice in an undertone. The red-faced man turned still redder: fixed an angry eye on the speaker's complexion, and was evidently meditating some very personal retort; but whatever it might be, he was abruptly compelled to give it, with other matters, to the winds. If there be such a thing as love at first sight, there certainly are antipathies got up at quite as short a notice; and the man with the red face had thus conceived an instinctive aversion to the man with the yellow one, at whom he could not even look without visible symptoms of dislike. "And how do you feel, sir?" inquired the sufferer as I passed near him, just after one of his paroxysms. 'Perfectly well as yet." "The better for you, sir," said the peppery man, rather sharply. "As for me, I'm as sick as a dog! I should not mind that, if it was in regular course; but there's that yellow fellow -just look at him, sir- there's a liver for

you!

there's disordered bile! a perfect walking Jaundice! He's the man to be sick, and yet he's quite well and comfortable; and I'm the man to be well, and here I can't keep anything! I assure you, sir, I have naturally a strong stomach, like a horse, sir; never had an indigestion, - - never! and as for appetite, I've been eating and drinking ever since I came on board! And yet you see how I am! And there's that saffron-colored fellow, I do believe it was his sickly face that first turned me, —I do, upon my honor; there's that yellow-fevered rascal· renounce me! if he is n't going down to dinner!"

-

As had been predicted, we dined early, and, par conséquent, on half-dressed vegetables, a piece of red beef, superficially done brown, and a very hasty pudding. The coarse, inferior nature of the fare, did not escape my uncle's notice; "but I suppose," said he, "a keen salt-water appetite is not particular as to feeding on prime qualities." The words were scarcely uttered when he suddenly turned pale, and laid down his knife and fork. Never having been at sea before, and aware of some unusual sensations within, he instantly attributed them to the old source, and whispered to me to forbid my stirring. "I am a dead man, but don't alarm your aunt." Guessing how the matter stood, I let him scramble by himself to the deck, from which in a few minutes he returned, filled a glass of wine, drank it off, and then gave me a significant nod. "Another reprieve, Frank. It's very unpleasant, but I'm convinced what has just happened was the saving of my life. The circulation was all but gone, when a sort of convulsion of the stomach set it a-going again, and gave me time to rally." "Accidents that will happen at sea," remarked our skipper. "And on shore, too," replied my uncle, very solemnly. "Captain, I have been dying suddenly these ten years." The captain screwed up his lips for a whistle, but it was not audible. "And for my part, sir," said our Daffodil, I envy you your apoplexy. I am going, going, going, going, by inches."

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At this announcement, the cabin-boy hastily pulled out an assortment of basins, selected a large blue and white one, and placed it conveniently at the feet of the speaker. From the first glimpse of the sickly-looking passenger, our steward's mate had pitched upon him for a pet patient, - he had watched him, listened to him, and whenever "Boy was summoned in