the notion, although I cannot speak from my own personal experience, for the soldier's mother having a friend from Ayrshire in the town, left us there, and,’' by her absence, obligated me to look out for another companion, to entertain me in the remainder of the voyage. But this was not a matter of such facility as might be thought, for the major number of the passengers being for Greenock, they were all taken up with counting by their watches how long time they would be of reaching the Custom-house stairs, and telling one another of the funny deeds and sayings of some of their townsfolk, who, by all accounts, are the cleverest people in the whole world, and not only the cleverest, but the drollest, having a capacity by common, and a manner, when they are inclined for sport, that is most surprising. I shall, however, have something more to say about them by and by; meanwhile let it be enough for the present, that, in the whole course of the voyage from Port-Glasgow to Greenock, I got no satisfaction. They turned their backs to my inquiries, as if I had been nobody, little reflecting that the time would come, (as may now be seen here) when I would depict them in their true colours, and teach them, that there is truth in the proverb, which says,-" It's not the cloak that makes the friar ;" for I perceived, they thought me but an auld-fashioned man, little knowing that there was the means in my shop, of getting as fashionable a coat as the sprucest of these saucy sparks had on, to say nothing of the lining I could put in the pouches. When we came to the town of Greenock, I was much surprised to see it a place of great extent and traffic, of which I had no notion; more especially was I struck with wonder at the custom-house, that is a most stately erection, bearing a similitude to our jail, and I was grieved that I had paid my passage to Helensburgh, because it prevented me from viewing the vast of shipping and curiosities of this emporium; but as I have, through life, resigned myself at all times, and on all occasions, to the will, as it were, of the things I could not controul, I submitted, for the present, to the disappointment, resolving, at some future period, to make a voyage from the Broomielaw, on purpose to take a survey of Greenock, and to note at leisure, as it behoves a traveller to do, the manners and customs of the inhabitants, together with the religious ceremonies and antiquities of the place, after the excellent method exampled in that very entertaining book, Guthrie's Geography. Accordingly, having pacified my mind in this manner, I staid in the steam-boat with the passengers that were bound for Helensburgh, until the Greenockians, with their bag and baggage, were put on the shore, which took place at the stairs forenent the custom-house; and here let me pause and make a remark for the benefit of persons intending to see foreign parts, to the effect, that they should both read and inquire anent the places they purpose to see, before they depart, by which they will be enabled to regulate their course in a more satisfactory manner, than if they go away in such light hearsays, as I did in my first voyage. After landing, as I have noticed, our cargo of Greenockians, the steam was again set to work, and the vessel, with all that orderliness and activity which belongs to the enginry, moved round, and, turning her latter end to Greenock, walked over the waters straight to Helensburgh. This is not a long voyage naturally, being no more than four miles, if so much; but it is not without dangers, and we had a lively taste and type of the perils of shipwreck in crossing the bank, a great shoal that lies midway in the sea. For it happened that we were later for the tide than the Captain had thought; so that, when we were in what the jack-tars call the mid-channel, the gallant Waterloo, that had come all the way from Glasgow like a swan before the wind, stuck fast in the mud. Never shall I forget the dunt that dirled on my heart when she stopped, and the engines would go no farther. Fortunately, as I was told, this came to pass just at the turn of the tide, or otherwise, there is no saying what the consequences might have been; it being certain, that if the accident had happened an hour before, we should have been obligated to wait more than two hours, instead of half an hour; and if, in the course of that time, a tempest had arisen, it is morally certain, the vessel lying high and dry, that the waves would have beaten over her, and, in all human probability, dashed her to pieces, by which every soul on board would to a certainty have perished; for we were so far from land, both on the Greenock and the Helensburgh coast, that no help by boat or tackle could have been afforded. It was a dreadful situation, indeed, that we were in; and when I reflected on the fickleness of the winds, and the treachery of the seas, my anxieties found but a small comfort in the calm that was then in the air, and the glassy face of the sunny waters around us. However, I kept up my spirits, and waited for the flowing of the tide with as much composure as could reasonably be called for, from a man who had never been a venture at sea before, but had spent his days in a shop in the Saltmarket, as quietly as an hour-glass ebbing its sands in a cor ner. While we were in this state, I fell into discourse with a sailor lad, who had come home from Jamaica in the West Indies, and was going over from Greenock to see his friends, who lived at the Rue, on the Gairloch side; and falling into discourse, we naturally conversed about what might be the consequence of our lying on the bank, and if the vessel should chance to spring a leak, and such other concerns as, from less to more, led us on to talk of ships sinking in the great ocean, or taking fire thousands of miles from any land, and all those other storms and perils among which the lot of the mariner is cast. And I was expressing to him my amazement, that ever any man who had been cast away, could afterwards think of going again to sea. "Ah," said he, "for all that, the sailor's life is a heartsome life-If we risk limb and life, we are spared from the sneaking anxieties that make other men so shame-faced. Besides, sir, there is a pleasure in our dangers, and common suffering opens the generosity of the heart, so that, when we have little wherewith to help one another, we make up for it in kindness." I could not but wonder how this sailor lad had learnt to speak in this style of language, and he satisfied me by telling me that his father had been a dominie, and that he had received a good education, to qualify him, please God, to take the command of a vessel. I then spoke to him very particularly about what he might have seen and met with in the course of his seafaring life, and so led him on to relate, as follows, an account of a hurricane, by which the ship that he was in was lost, and every soul on board, save himself, a dog, and a black fellow, perished. TALE III. "We were going up," said he, "from Trinidad to St Kitts, in as fine weather as ever was seen in the heavens, and we expected to make a brisk passage; but, in the third night after our departure, about the middle of the second watch, the wind fell on a sudden dead calm-I was on deck at the timeevery one was surprised-for it had been blowing a steady breeze till that moment. It had, however, been noticed the night before, that the cat was freaking about, and climbing the rigging, with a storm in her tail,- -a sign which is never known to fail. "Towards morning, the air in the West Indies becomes lighter and fresher; but in that night, we observed, it grew close and sultry, and about sunrise the heat was very heavy-Yet the sky was clear, not a speck of cloud to be seen, the sea, however, was discoloured, as at the mouth of a river. An old man-of-wars-man whom we had on board, one Thomas Buoy, who had been in the Ramilies when the Ville de Paris went down, was very uneasy at these signs, and said they reminded him of the weather before that hurri cane. "All day the dead calm and the oppressive heat continued, but still overhead the heavens were bright. About noon, however, just as we had taken an observation, Thomas bade me notice a sort of smoky haze spreading round the horizon. I don't like that,' said he; nor did I either, although I had no reason on my part. At sunset, this vapour had thickened in the west into two or three strips of black cloudsome of the men thought they betokened rain and thunder, and wind too,' said Thomas Buoy, as he walked the deck thoughtfully. However, the night set in as beautiful as ever. Every star in the firmament was out, beaming like the lamp in the binnacle, but, for all that, the dead calm and the sultry air lay heavy on the spirits of all on board, and the ship was as a log on the water. "About half a glass before midnight, the man at the helm saw a fire-ball at the mainmast head, and in a short time another on the foremast. When the watch was changed, there was one at each mast-head. Some of the sailors had seen such lights before, without harm following, but nobody liked them. During the watch the men were not so cheerful as usual, as I heard in the morning, and Thomas Buoy kept himself aloof, and was frequently heard to say, God help us!' The mate had that night come suddenly on deck, terrified out of his sleep by a dream, in which he thought he saw a large black Newfoundland dog come down into the captain's state-room, and run off with him in his teeth-But the day-light came round, a and the weather, for a sprang up, and the ship went at a brave rate, but Thomas Buoy remarked that the skies were streaked with flakes of goatshair, and said the wind was not yet come-At noon, he pointed out to the captain a small round black cloud in the north-west, which he solcumly said was the eye of a hurricane. Every other vapour changed its shape and hue but that cloud-It was fixed; and, as Thomas said, looked at us with vengeance. Towards the evening it began to alter, and gradually to spread, until the whole heaven, from the south-west to the north, was filled with the dark and rolling omens of a thunder-storm and tempest. The wind frequently veered from one point to another, and every now and then came out with a sudden puff, as if the devil had been fetching his breath. We prepared for the worst-took in sail, and struck the topgallant masts. About an hour after sunset, it began to lighten fiercely along the horizon, but we heard no thunder. "This confirmed the fears of Thomas Buoy. It is now gathering," said he, these flashes are Beelzebub's rockets, thrown up as signals for action. Surely the old man felt the hand of fate upon him, for all his apprehensions were confirmed. "The wind, as the night darkened, came on gusty and rougher-now it blew a steady breeze from the north, but in a moment there was a pause, and then a squall came roaring from the west, as if all the trade-winds that were blowing from the east since the last hurricane, had been furiously driven back. Still the hand of mercy. struggled with the tempest; and it was not till midnight that it came flapping forth with all its wings, in the dreadful license of full liberty. "As we were all snug aloft, the captain, who was a steady seaman,poor fellow, a better never trode on oak,-ordered the watch to be kept as usual, that, in case of accidents, the men might come fresh to their duty, but few of us turned in. The mate sat with Thomas, listening to what he had suffered on board the Ramilies, and hearing the howls of the hurricane above. While he was in one of the wildest passages of his old stories, a sheet of lightning struck the mizen, and the whole party declared, that in the same moment they something found and dog such as the mete hud in the likeness of a large black New seen in his dream run past them; as it were from the hold, and escape upon deck. The e mizen topmast was rent into splinters, and the captain was so wounded in the head by one of the pieces, that I assisted to carry him to his cot. "We were now driving along at the mercy of the wind, which was blowing so strong, sweeping round the compass like a whirlpool, that the ocean was flying all spindrift. In this state we continued three hours, till, in a sudden checking round of a squall, a sea broke on board, which carried away the boats, the binnacle, two men at the helm, and every thing on deck that was not a part of the ship. She was almost upset by the shock; and we found, when we expected that she would have righted from the lurch, the cargo had shifted, by which the rudder was rendered useless-and still the hurricane was increasing. "The day light began at last to dawn, but the air was so thick, that we could not see across the deck; and, but that we knew from the force of the wind, that the vessel must be going, and that too at a great rate, no one on board could say she was in motion,, "About two hours after sunrise, we saw, on the larboard side, some-, thing vast and dark, through the spindrift; at first we took it for a line of battle ship lying too, but in a moment Thomas Buoy clapped his hands in despair, and cried, The land, the land.' away;' but in an instant she struck again, and the masts were thrown overboard. The third shock did her business; she gave, as it were, a deep groan, and, hogging up in midships, yawned asunder by the main hatchway, her stern sinking into the water with the poor captain in his cot, and all the brave fellows who were at the moment at the mizen chains, cutting away the rigging. "I happened at the time to be on the forecastle; and, looking a-head, saw that the bowsprit reached to the rocks. I called on all to follow me ; and, running out at once, got safe to the cliff; but in the same moment, the wreck lurched over, and filling, went down with all the crew, except a black fellow, whom the captain had brought as steward from Trinidad, and a little dog that he was taking as a present to a lady at St Thomas's.-How the dog had escaped I cannot tell, for he was on the land before me; but the black. fellow was like a sea-gull, and saved himself by swimming. "It seemed to me, that at the very time when we reached the shore, the gale slackened; for the air soon after became lighter, and I saw we were not. far from a sugar plantation, all the mills and houses belonging to which, were scattered like shingles and splinters." Just as the sailor had got to this crisis of his story, the steam-boat began to move; and in the course of a minute or two, she was paddling her way towards Helensburgh; and her motion made every body again so jocose and lively, that I could not but marvel at the depths of the mysteries of the heart of man. As we drew near to the shore, the sailor had forgotten all the earnest solemnity of his tale, and was the blithest in the boat. Fain would I have questioned him about the particulars of what ensued when he found himself in the plantation, but he was no longer in a humour to attend to me,—his heart being taken up with the thought of getting to his friends,-just like a young dog that has broken loose from a confinement; so that I was left in a kind of an unsatisfied state, with the image of the broken ship in my mind, with her riven planks and timbers, grinning like the jaws of death amidst the raging waters ;-the, which haunted me till I got a chack of dinner at the hotel, and a comfortable tumbler of excellent old double-rum toddy. But I should mention, that till the dinner was gotten ready, I had a pleasant walk along the shore, as far as the Cairn dhue, and saw on the right hand, among its verdant plantations, the lordly castle of Ardincaple, and on the left, ayont the loch, the modern mansion which the Duke of Argyle is building there among the groves of Roseneath; with which, it's my opinion, no situation in this country side can compare, for hill and dale, and wood and water, and other comely and romantic incidents of Highland mountains, all rocky and fantastical, like a painted pic ture by some famous o'ersea limner. HORA DANICE. No. IV. Hagbarth and Signa; A Tragedy. BY ADAM OEHLANSCHLAEGER. one track ere she flies away into another. Any one of his plots would, in the hands of Müllner or Grillparzer, have been rendered much more effective; for these authors, though not naturally gifted with superior power, have acquired the habit of patient and elaborate concentration, and their system is highly laudable; for imagination, though an active, is generally a slow faculty, as every strong passion reaches by degrees its acme. In some respects, Ingeman (though a much younger author) is even superior to his countryman; and there are four or five of his plays to which we intend, before long, to direct the attention of our readers. But to return, the story of the tragedy now before us might almost be told in three words: SIGNA, A YOUNG DANISH PRINCESS, FALLS IN LOVE WITH HAGBARTH, A THERE have been several poets, (Wordsworth for example) who have deemed it advisable to publish prefatory dissertations, in order that their works might be properly understood and appreciated. We do not say that Oehlanschlaeger should have done this; -and yet it certainly is desirable that the reader should be perfectly aware of the author's peculiar system, that he may not condemn the poet for missing a mark at which he had never aimed. It is obvious, that whoever comes fresh from the study of Müllner and Grillparzer, in German, is but ill prepared to relish the works of their Danish contemporary. By an elaborate and ornate style, founded on that of Calderon, the masters of the modern schools in Germany exhibit all the arts (or tricks as they have been termed) of eloquence, and irresistibly attract admiration, even from those who do not NORWEGIAN PRINCE, WHO HAS KILLallow them unqualified praise. so, Oehlanschlaeger. As if by chance, (if metaphor is here allowable) he finds the pillars of some ancient Scandina vian temple, seizes the massy fragments, and, by one mighty spell, combines them into a great and graceful whole; where subsidiary ornaments, if not indeed altogether neglected, are yet never watchfully sought for, or os-tentatiously displayed. Thus, he will be the favourite more of brother-poets, than of ordinary readers; for a conge nial mind can perceive in a few simple and careless notes, the hand of a powerful musician; and, from such notes, endless trains of association may arise. The works of this highly-gifted Dane, are indeed a rich mine of inspiration for others; yet the Imagination by which he is led, scarcely allows herself time to spread her wings in any Not ED HER ELDER BROTHER IN SINGLE On this simple groundwork, all the interest depends. The work belongs to the numerous class of " Helden-gedichte," (heroic poems, or rather "gests of heroes") and the characters, however wild and rude, are in strict keeping with the manners of the times. To obviate an objection which would otherwise be made to the conduct of Signa, the poet has very skilfully made it appear, that her deceased brother Alf, had been, in truth, for twelve months past, weary of his life, and that his antagonist, instead of deserving to be branded as his murderer, had in truth only saved his antagonist from the necessity of committing suicide. The drama commences with the arrival of Hagbarth's Norwegian vessel on the shore of Denmark. ACT I, SCENE I. Morning. Blowing of horns from the sea-shore, which are answered from the wood. GRIM and ERICHSON enter with halberts. Grim. It is a Norman. Erich. No-a Swede. Grim. A Norman ;→→→ A Drontheimer. See'st thou not the black sail? Grim. And blows his horn. Well, I must answer him! (Winds his horn.) |