ON Monday, June 16th, 1823, we went down by the Ramsgate steam-boat, to join the Thomas Grenville at the Lower Hope, accompanied by a party of kind relations and friends who were willing to let us see as much of them as we could before our necessary separation. Captain Manning had the yards of the ship manned, and fired a salute in compliment to us. The Grenville weighed anchor soon after we were on board, but met with an adverse wind, and advanced a very little way down the river.

On the 17th we had again baffling winds, and could not get round the North Foreland. About two o'clock on the morning of the 18th a fine north breeze sprung up, which carried us very soon into the Downs. We lay off Deal about six hours, waiting for passengers and a fresh supply of water, much to the vexation of the old pilot, who bitterly regretted that so fine a breeze was allowed to remain useless. It continued, however, and we set off auspiciously at six the same evening, sailing with the wind so well on our quarter, and through so smooth a sea, that though the breeze grew strong in the night, the motion of the ship was hardly perceptible.

In the course of the day I had proposed to read evening prayers regularly, which was received with readiness on the part of Captain Manning. Accordingly, after tea, I repeated, with the party assembled in the cuddy, the General Confession, Lord's Prayer, Petition

VOL. I.

for all Conditions of Men, General Thanksgiving, &c.

On the 20th the ship's company were busied, during the early part of the day, in lowering the quarter-deck guns into the hold, and getting up the baggage for the passengers, an operation which, we are told, is to take place once a fortnight. The effect was singular; the whole deck being strewed, during the greater part of the morning, with trunks and packages either shut or open, looked as if we had been boarded and rifled by pirates. To-day I finished "Quentin Durward," which I had kept as a resource of amusement for the voyage. I began it yesterday, and could not stop till I had quite eaten up my cake. It will, however, bear reading over more than once. I am, certainly, much pleased with it. It has more talent and interest as a story than most which have lately proceeded from the same quarter. Lewis the XIth is powerfully drawn, though, notwithstanding the superiority of his talents, he does not, as a rich and vivid portrait, so completely please and amuse me as James I. in Nigel." Yet between the two monarchs there are many points of resemblance. Ludovic Leslie is but a very ordinary daubing of the Scots mercenary soldier, and only serves to remind us, unpleasantly, of Dugald Dalgetty, and most absurdly, and to the ruin of the conclusion of the story, blunders at its end into the triumph which the wishes of the readers had reserved for his nephew.

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Quentin himself is precisely the Page | of "The Abbot," a raw lively lad, thrown by accident into situations of great interest and intricacy; and in no very probable manner, and by no great merit of his own, rising from poverty and obscurity to fame and great wealth, and the enjoyment of the object of his affections. The other characters, male and female, are mere sketches, but sketches of great talent and vivacity. I like them all, from the grave, courtly, sententious, and tipsy old soldier, Lord Crawford, down to the good-natured, stupid burghers of Liege, and the weeping and the laughing executioner. I would except, however, Hayraddin the Bohemian, whose sketch I think a complete failure; however ambitiously intended (and he seems to have been a favourite with the author) he is a very tame compound of Meg Merrilies, of Ronald Mac Eagh in the "Legend of Montrose," of Pacolet in the "Pirate," and of the dumb lady in the service of the Countess of Derby, as if a man, in his ambition after a new beverage, should pour wine, whiskey, beer, and raspberry-vinegar into the same cup. And after all, Hayraddin, with all his talk about planets, palmistry, and atheism, does nothing but what a mere ordinary spy would have done as well, and what, if he had been employed to do, he never would have attempted under the disadvantage of any peculiarities of dress and manner. But though it is very easy to find fault with "Quentin Durward," it is decidedly better than many of Scott's later works, nor is there any man now living but Walter Scott who could have written it. So ends the last critique that I shall, in all probability, compose for a long time to come!

On the 21st we had the same gentle breeze, which, though now shifted to nearly due north, answered our purpose extremely well. Our latitude this day at noon was 48° 9', long. W. 7° 21. The weather fine, though cruelly cold for Midsummer. I was this morning engaged by "Scoresby's Voyage to Old Greenland in 1822," but I find two circumstances for which, at sea, I was by no means prepared :—that, namely, we have no great time for study; and that

for me at least there is so much which interests and occupies me, that I have no apprehensions of time hanging heavy on my hands.

June 22.-This day, being Sunday, the decks were all beautifully clean, having been well scrubbed on Saturday night. The awning was spread over the quarter-deck, and the capstan and sides of the vessel concealed and ornamented with flags of different nations. Chairs were set for the officers and passengers on the poop, and round the afterpart of the deck, and spars laid across the remainder as seats for the sailors, who attended church in clean shirts and trowsers, and well washed and shaved. In the space between the capstan and half-deck was a small table set for me and the purser, who acted as clerk, and I read prayers, and preached one of my Hodnet Sermons, slightly altered, to a very attentive and orderly congregation, of altogether, I should think, one hundred and forty persons. The awning made really a handsome church, and the sight was a very pleasing one.

June 24.-This morning we were roused, after a night of much vexatious rolling, by the intelligence that a sail was in sight, by which we might send letters to England. I had some ready, and finished others. She was pretty close with us at about eight; a small dark-sided brig, of very beautiful build, and with a British pendant, which made her pass for a man-of-war, though, on a nearer approach, the apparent slovenliness of her equipment, and a crowd of foreign and dirty-looking people on board, gave rise to various conjectures. Captain Manning hoisted out one of his cutters with ten oars, besides the quartermaster and the midshipman who commanded, a handsome boat, making, from the appearance of the men, and their discipline, a show little inferior to that of a man-of-war. He sent our letters, together with two newspapers, and two bottles of milk, a present which he said would fairly pay for the carriage of our dispatches to England. She turned out to be a Falmouth packet, nine days out of Lisbon, crowded with different adventurers who had volunteered their

more studious to make the loss less to them, and also, and above all, so to discharge my duty, that they may never think that these sacrifices have been made in vain.

July 3.--We made an excellent progress during the night. At about five in the evening we saw Madeira on our larboard bow. The horizon was unfortunately hazy, and the night shut in with clouds, otherwise we should, about an hour after, have had a fine view of the land at about twenty miles' distance on the beam. As it was we could barely distinguish its outline through the mist; but the very sight of land, and the sense of progress which it communicated, were very exhilarating, and kept us all on deck till it was quite dark. During this evening the gale and the sea had continued to increase; some of the cabins on the gun-deck had shipped water; Mr. Burnet predicted uncomfortable weather; and the captain, though he did not shorten sail, gave orders to have all the lower ports secured. We went to bed, therefore, not unprepared for a little tossing, though certainly not for all that followed. The wind was high during the night, and the swell more than commensurate, and our furniture, though we had secured it with unusual care, seemed alive. The moon, during the latter part of the night, was clear, and the view of the following surge from the cabin windows was very majestic; but to enjoy it, it was necessary to hold hard with

both hands.

July 4.-The gale and tossing continued all the forenoon; complaints of sleeplessness, broken heads and shins, were universal; and we were only comforted by the assurance that we had seen, probably, the worst of the ship's rolling, and that, even off the Cape of Good Hope, nothing more than this was reasonably to be apprehended. Our progress too was very cheering. Our run during the last twenty-four hours was computed at 200 miles, and our latitude at twelve was 31° 10′.

July 5.-Nothing very material occurred this day, excepting that some flying-fish began to be seen round us, but of so small a sort, that, though they

were numerous, it was a long time before I could distinguish them from the spray among which they fluttered.

July 6.-We had Divine Service, and I read a sermon on the Epistle for the day.* I did not feel quite sure whether the subject were too difficult for the major part of my audience or no. But I thought its discussion might, at all events, be serviceable to the educated part of my hearers, and I did not despair of making myself understood by the crew. I am inclined to hope that I succeeded with many of them. All were very attentive, and the petty officers, more particularly, heard me with great apparent interest. I am, on the whole, more and more confirmed in the opinion which Horsley has expressed in one of his Sermons, that a theological argument, clearly stated, and stated in terms derived from the ancient English language exclusively, will generally be both intelligible and interesting to the lower classes. They do not want acuteness or the power of attending; it is their vocabulary only which is confined, and if we address them in such words as they understand, we may tell them what truths we please, and reason with them as subtilely as

we can.

The flying-fish to-day were more numerous and lively. They rose in whole flights to the right and left of the bow, flying off in different directions, as if the vast body of the ship alarmed and disturbed them. Others, however, at a greater distance, kept rising and falling without any visible cause, and, apparently, in the gladness of their hearts, and in order to enjoy the sunshine and the temporary change of element. Certainly there was no appearance or probability of any larger fish being in pursuit of even one hundredth part of those which we saw, nor were there any birds to endanger their flight; and those writers who describe the life of these animals as a constant succession of alarms, and rendered miserable by fear, have never, I conceive, seen them in their mirth, or considered those natural feelings of health and hilarity

* Sixth Sunday after Trinity.

which seem to lead all creatures to exert, in mere lightness of heart, whatever bodily powers the Creator has given them. It would be just as reasonable to say that a lamb leaps in a meadow for fear of being bitten by serpents, or that a horse gallops round his pasture only because a wolf is at his heels, as to infer from the flight of these animals that they are always pursued by the bonito.

July 8.-The sun was now fairly to the north of us, and our trade-wind, though light, was steady. One of the sailors, a lad about seventeen, was accused of having, in wanton cruelty, stabbed and cut a sheep so severely that it bled to death. He had been cleaning knives near the sheep-pen, and the animal was found in this condition shortly after. He protested his innocence, and said the sheep had thrown down a board on which the knives were laid. This story was a lame one; but, with a very praiseworthy moderation, Captain Manning merely ordered him for the present into confinement, till the business could be more accurately inquired into. It is, he says, his general rule, and the rule of most captains in the Company's service, never to punish without a regular trial, or without some pause intervening between the accusation and the inquiry.

July 9.-The boy's trial came on, but he was discharged for want of sufficient evidence, with a suitable admonition. The day was fine. We were on deck the greater part of the morning, having transferred our Hindoostanee lecture thither. Our course continues south-west; our latitude 20° 57', longitude 24° 32'. The favourable breeze almost became a gale towards night; but we had less rolling than on former occasions.

July 11. A flying-fish fell on deck this morning, and I examined it with much interest. The form and colours are not unlike a herring's, with the addition of the two long filmy fins which support the animal in its short flights. This, however, was, as we were assured, a very small specimen, not exceeding the size of a small sparling or smelt.

July 13.-We had Divine service on deck this morning. A large shoal of dolphins were playing round the ship, and I thought it right to interfere to check the harpoons and fishing-hooks of some of the crew. I am not strict in my notions of what is called the Christian Sabbath; but the wanton destruction of animal life seems to be precisely one of those works by which the sanctity and charity of our weekly feast would be profaned. The seamen took my reproof in good part, and left the mizen chains where they had been previously watching for their prey. I trust that they will have other and better opportunities of amusement; this was a truly torrid day.

July 15.-A hot and close day, with much swell, and little or no wind. The sails flapped dismally; the foretop-sail was split; and I saw with interest the dexterity of the sail-maker in repairing the damage without unbinding it from the yard. The evening was such as to portend both rain and wind, and one of the men at the helm said that "he hoped it would blow its hardest," so weary were the sailors of this dull and uninteresting weather. Lat. 9° 50'. In the course of this day some of the seamen went round to solicit subscriptions from those who had not yet passed the line. They showed considerable anxiety for any decayed finery which the ladies might supply them with, as decorations for Amphitrite; and I was amused to learn that they had a copy of "Tooke's Pantheon," which they were diligently consulting, in order to make their costume as like as possible to the authentic dress and equipment of the classical Neptune and his family.

July 18.-The night was very blustering and rainy, and the motion of the vessel unpleasant. Our progress, however, continued rapid, and the wind favourable. A sail was, about ten, seen a-head, steering the same course with ourselves. On nearing her she showed Danish colours. Captain Manning expressed some little surprise at this meeting. The Danish flag, he said, was almost unknown in India, whither, apparently, this vessel was bound. The Danes have indeed a no