PAST HOurs. Ah, surely there are moments when thy heart Though all that made its earlier charm be vanished? Do you not think of me sometimes at night, When the dark hours are passing still and lonely, That bound me to thee with such vain delusion. Then I recall thy words and looks, and think, How could they wear such true, such tender seeming ?I think till I can bear no more, and shrink, And mock myself for all this idle dreaming. How many words of thine I now recall, Scarce noticed at the time when they were spoken; Alas! how true love fondly treasures all The slightest things, like some heart precious token. I wish I could forget them-for they keep Calm from my waking hours-rest from my pillow, Like those uncertain restless winds that sweep, Rising with their perpetual strife, the billow. If weary of the weight upon my heart, I struggle to be glad with vain endeavour; If I am sad and weary, and fling by The tasks in which I take my old delight no longer : All other sorrows bring one sadness nigh, Life's cares are strong-but those of love are stronger. Love has its part in every other thing, All grief increasing and all joy impairing; Death is the only hope, for death will bring Rest to the heart, fevered with long despairing. Ah, then, farewell, there is no more for me; Where the last shadow falls on life's last sorrow. L. E. L. THE OLD TIMES. Do you recal what now is living only Amid the memories garnered at the heart?- Where fruit and flowers had each an equal part? Near was the well o'er whose damp walls were weeping The bean's sweet breath was blended with the rose; Alike rejoicing in the pleasant weather That brought the bloom to these, the fruit to those, The dear old times. There was no fountain over marble falling; But the bees murmur'd one perpetual song, Like soothing waters, and the birds were calling Upon the sunny grass-plot stood the dial, Whose measured time strange contrast with ours made: Ah! was it omen of life's after trial, That even then the hours were told in shade, In the old, old times, The dear old times? But little recked we then of those sick fancies To know if some slight wish would come to pass; Yet my heart warms at these fond recollections, The old, old times, THE DIVING-BELL.-NO. I. CAPTAIN FALCONER. IT would be a tedious and a melancholy task, to explore the fate of all the literary adventurers, who have set their sails for the haven of immortality, and foundered on the rash voyage; but there have been barks, seaworthy and valuably laden, too, which yet have gone down in the tide of time, shattered, perhaps, by collision, or becalmed by neglect: and to visit these wrecks of literature, and bring to the light what is rich and rare in their cargoes, is the service to which we devote our DIVING-BELL. The work, of which we are now about to give an account, is entitled "The Voyages, Adventures, and Imminent Escapes, of Captain Richard Falconer; intermixed with the Voyages and Adventures of Thomas Randal, of Cork, Pilot." On the fly-leaf of a copy of this very rare book, which belonged to Sir Walter Scott, there is this note in his handwriting: "This book I read in early youth. I am ignorant whether it is altogether fictitious and written upon De Foe's plan, which it greatly resembles, or whether it is only an exaggerated account of the adventures of a real person. It is very scarce; for, endeavouring to add it to the other favourites of my infancy, I think I looked for it ten years to no purpose, and at last owed it to the active kindness of Mr. Terry: yet Richard Falconer's adventures seem to have passed through several editions." Mr. Lockhart, in his recently published life of Sir Walter, has preserved the letter of acknowledgment to Mr. Terry for procuring this book, which, says Scott, "brings back, with vivid associations, the sentiments of my childhood, I might almost say infancy. Nothing ever disturbed my feelings more than when, sitting by the old oak-table, my aunt, Lady Raeburn, used to read the lamentable catastrophe of the ship's departing without Captain Falconer, in consequence of the whole party making free with lime-punch on the eve of its being launched." It will presently be seen that Sir Walter has not remembered the incident with quite his usual accuracy; but it is not less interesting than he describes it. In entering upon this narrative, the reader will bear in mind the state of maritime affairs in the tropical regions during the 17th century. The Crown of Spain, which, under a papal bull, claimed exclusive dominion in the West Indies and on the continent of America, showed little toleration to the subjects of other nations interloping in the newlydiscovered seas. After a time, the mariners of all the other European countries began to make common cause against the monopolizing Spaniards; and out of that association sprang the band of adventurers, who became formidable, and presently outrageous, under the title of the Buccaneers. Upon their suppression, which was about the close of the 17th century, there arose a still more desperate race, who preyed, as common pirates, on the commerce of all nations; and the barbarities of these ruffians, together with the still lingering jealousies of the Spaniards, made the navigation of the American seas so perilous, that, at the close of the 17th and commencement of the 18th centuries, the dates of Falconer's adventures, the trade of the tropics wore the aspect of chivalrous, rather than of commercial, enterprise. Richard Falconer was born at Bruton, in Somersetshire. Like most other heroes of maritime adventure, he was smitten in early youth with a longing for a rover's life; but his family, who were in good circumstances, opposed his inclination, until his father, having been robbed of almost all his property by a person in his employment, at length consented to let him try his fortune on the seas, presenting him, by way of outfit, with 100., and recommending him to the care of Captain Pulteney, an old friend resident at Bristol. Pulteney received him with great kindness; and, having put him in the way of improving his mathematics, of which he had acquired some knowledge at school, procured him the post of a mate, or rather assistant, on board the Albion frigate. The Albion sailed for Jamaica on the 2nd of May, 1699. As soon as she was out of sight of land, the qualms of Falconer, who had never been afloat before, began to move the mirth of the sailors, who cried, "There's an excellent master's mate! He'll hit Jamaica to a hair, if the island were no bigger than the bung-hole of a cask." "I must confess," writes he, "I believe myself to be the only person who ever set out on his first voyage as master's mate, without ever having seen a river that was navigable." After being boarded by a pirate, and rescued by an English ship, the vessel in which Falconer sailed arrived safely in the West Indies. He visited several of the islands, of which he describes the aspect and the natural productions; and, on the 7th of September, reached Jamaica. From that colony he went, by permission of his captain, in a sloop to Campeachy, on the coast of Yucatan, a province of New Spain, to cut the logwood with which that territory abounds. This was a dangerous service, which the wood-cutters were wont to perform with all practicable secrecy, and under the protection of an armed force from their vessels; for the Spaniards, if they caught the trespassers, had no mercy on them. In the course of Falconer's trip to Campeachy, one of the sloop's crew related to him the following history of a similar expedition, undertaken, about ten years before, by an English sloop, of which the narrator had been on board. The wood-cutters, trusting to accomplish their purpose in the usual clandestine manner, got quietly on shore, all but six, who were left on board to take care of the vessel. As soon as the main body of the crew were thus separated from their sloop, the Spaniards, who had intelligence of their descent, dispatched a number of canoes, containing in all about 100 men, and seized her, without resistance on the part of the six on board, who were instantly clapped under hatches. Having ransacked her, and sent everything of value on shore, they made preparations for trepanning the absent crew, of whom a detachment was to return on board, the very following night, with a load of the logwood. With this view the six English prisoners were, on the next evening, taken up to the deck, and compelled to stand there as their comrades approached in the long boat from the shore, on pain of instant death if they should dare to give the slightest warning of what had happened. The long boat's crew, wholly unsuspicious, came freely alongside, climbed the vessel carelessly without their arms, and were, in a moment, seized and put in irons. After some time, the party on shore, who had been expecting them to re-land for another load of logwood, became uneasy at their non-appearance, and sent a second canoe with six men to learn the reason of the delay. The Spaniards repeated their stratagem, and this party was taken in the same trap as the former; but, in the middle of the night, one of these last six found means to slip into the water; and, though the sloop lay a league from the shore, he swam safely to land and acquainted his comrades there with the misadventure of the two first parties. Now it happened that some French hunters had come in from the bay, and had left three large canoes moored to the strand. After a short consultation, the Englishmen took possession of these boats, and made the best of their way in them, well armed, toward their own sloop, intending to let it be supposed, as they got on board, that they, like the two former parties, were unaware of the capture by the Spaniards. When they had rowed within a hundred yards of the sloop, some of their own people on deck, who were acting under the compulsion of the Spaniards, hailed in the usual manner to which the rowers, affecting great displeasure, answered by cursing them for not having come back to shore with the long boat for another cargo, instead of leaving the logwood to be brought thus in canoes. "How many are you?" replied their comrades on the deck.-" We are all here now," said the canoes' men, "except three, whom we left ashore to look after the arms and the remainder of the logwood, which you must go ashore and fetch immediately in the long boat." "The long boat cannot be sent," rejoined the men on deck, "for we broke such a hole in her bow against a ledge of rock, in bringing the first cargo of the logwood, that it was as much as we could do to get her as far as the sloop." By the time these questions had been asked and answered, the canoes' men were close in, and began to run nimbly up the vessel's side. The two or three, who first stepped on board, drew their pistols and cutlasses from under their watch-coats, and fired on the Spaniards, who, half unarmed and without suspicion of the counterplot, were running up to seize them as before. The next two or three of the English, as had been preconcerted, gave arms to those of their countrymen who were on deck, and running down the hatchway, dispatched the sentries who guarded the remainder of their countrymen. Then, returning upon deck with these fresh recruits, they fell upon the amazed and disheartened Spaniards, who now threw down their arms and cried for quarter. This being granted them, they were all secured under hatches. And thus, after the destruction of nine Spaniards and the loss of one Englishman, the sloop was once again in the possession of the British master and crew. Encouraged by this success, they now enlarged the plan of their enterprise; and, learning that a rich ship was lying in the harbour before the town of Campeachy, they laid a plan for making prize of her. Hoisting Spanish colours, they sailed for Campeachy, and, arriving in the forenoon of the next day, saluted the fort, as friends, with seven guns, which compliment was returned to them from the shore. The people were assembled in crowds on the beach, to see the English woodcutters, whom they concluded that this vessel had taken and was bringing in as her prisoners; but the vessel passed on toward the Spanish ship, which was the object of her cruise-and which appeared in sight, a league from the town, preparing to come nearer in-shore. The Englishmen, sailing up to her, boarded her on the starboard side, which lay |