beauties to the connoisseur, beauties the more striking in proportion as the eye is practised and judicious. If the countenances of Achilles and Chiron are examined in the original, and not in the very imperfect engraving of them which has been published, their truth and expression will appear inimitable. In Achilles, every feature is that of a young man burning for glory, and eagerly fixing his eyes on his master, impatient to learn the means of acquiring it. Four principal pictures have also been found amid the ruins of that city, which unite the utmost beauty of design to the most perfect handling of the pencil; they appear to be anterior to any of those we have mentioned; the date of the former may be fixed about the first century of the Christian era.

The style of the dying Cleopatra, independently of the nature of the colouring, has more resemblance to those of an earlier period.

YANKEE NOTIONS.

No. II.

Once more upon the waters!

By which I mean, not that I was ever upon the waters before, but that I have read Byron's poetry-poor dear Byron !-that I know how to make use of it, and that I am able to find a motto for myself at a pinch, without referring to Doctor Samuel Johnson's folio treasury, by a catch word, as other people do, I fear, when they are hard pushed for a line of poetry or a line of prose, in the shape of a motto. And, by the way, speaking of mottos, I like to see a motto suggested by the subject, not a subject suggested by the motto, (I don't care for authority;) so with a quotation, so with a beautiful idea, though that idea. be the very gem of a little song set by Moore, whose poetry, for a whole page, may be traced to a single thought, lurking at the very bottom of it like a drop of pure honey in the cup of an artificial hyacinth, such as the milliners make, or a drop of exquisite poison at the tail of a honey-bee, that winged epigram of the flower-garden.

Now for the voyage! Our ship, the Franklin, of Baltimore, was to sail on the 1st of December, 1823, if possible; before the 8th, in all probability; on the 14th, positively; that being Sunday, a day on which your true sailor will go to sea if he can, blow the wind high or low, just as he will not go to sea on a Friday, if he can help it, whatever may be the need-on the fourteenth positively; so, we sailed on the fifteenth; weighed anchor on Monday, the 15th Dec. 1823, at 9 A.M. I love to be particular; it shows that I've not been to sea for nothing; "thof," as a salt-water sailor would say, "there's no great use in a log-book, after you get ashore." No such thing, by the byeall he knows about it; for log-books are the rage now with people who were never out of sight of land in their lives; and are never heard of in some cases, till after people have gone ashore. Ask T-H or W- I- else; or the celebrated Sir T. L. who bought a picture of Danby's, a year or two ago, called a Sun-set at Sea, (as if Sir T. L. had ever been at sea in his life, or as if anybody on earth had ever seen such a sky before,) to prove what? Why, that he,

Sir T.L. was a judge of what nobody had ever thought him to be a judge of, or cared about his being a judge of. But, men with no ear for music will be sure to dance or beat time, where a fellow with ears would not, unless they were very large. We care less for the reputation we have, than for the reputation we have not. Goldsmith grew jealous of an ape; and after writing the Vicar of Wakefield, pushed away the chair, and broke his shins over the table before his brother wits, to prove that he was a match for the ape.

Well, it was a wet, heavy, damp, rascally day, when the ship set sail, (if you swear in reading this, reader, it is no fault of mine,) a dismal day, to be sure, and I was not half satisfied with myself (a rare case with me) for coming aboard, without a fiftieth farewell or so, to the few friends that stuck by me to the last, very much as if they had authority" to see me off." We had missed each other. I was alone the ship on her way—I had come off unexpectedly, after all. Faith! it was enough to give one a touch of the heart ache.

People may chatter as much as they like about the pleasure of bidding a worthy friend (male or female) good bye,-good bye, for nobody knows how long; about the comfort of kissing, and crying, and parting; or, as they have it now in this double-refined age, of embracing, and weeping, and separating, for-ev-er and-ev-er. As for me, I found no sort of pleasure in it, and very little comfort. If I reproach myself, therefore, it is not for having cheated myself, but others; for, though I found no pleasure in parting with them, they may have found much in parting with me.

A few tears, and a kiss or two, are well enough, where a kiss, or two and a few tears are expected; but, of a truth, to live upon tears and kisses for a week at a stretch, or upon smiles and wine, as Moore hath it, is a little too bad (I guess) whatever may be expected of you. No parting at all, say I, (such would be my advice to a beginner ;) no parting at all, whatever may be your opportunities or your temptation, till the ship or the coach is under way. You lose more than you gain by reiterated adieus; you never part as you should part from those who are very, very dear to you, unless you know that your parting is not for a day-unless you are quite sure that your parting is a parting. You go away, at first, with a gush of true affection, a burst of real sorrow, from her whose cheek you have wet with your boyish tears; you tremble to the heart, when you pluck away your mouth from the red mouth of her that you love, (red as the core of a ripe water-melon,) if you pluck it away in the farewell of good faith, and do not see her again for years. But if you stay-if the wind or the rain drive you back-if the coach be overloaded, or the ship cannot sail, you had better take another coach or another ship, than go back to repeat your farewell kiss, however much you may love or be loved. If you meet, you are sleepy, and cold, and tired, or she is, or both of you; and both disappointed, while both want courage to say so. Your own hearts reproach you, first for feeling so little joy, when you are together again, after such a pathetic adieu; and secondly, for pretending to feel so much. So it goes on, worse and worse every time, till, if you do part, you part unpreparedly-unexpectedly, or without a fiftieth part of your first warmth, when every word and every look would have been treasured up for the rest of your

life. In a word, better go away for-ev-er, without saying good-bye at all, than after two or three good-byes.

I had been ready for a week before we got away. Night after night (after running about the whole city to take leave, or something better, of the few that I cared for,-the very few, and sitting up till I was ready to drop out of my chair) had I gone to bed, a bed like a snow bank, where I lay just long enough to take the chill off, waiting for a notice from the ship. Morning after morning, had I crawled out into the open air, at (so far as I am able to judge) a most unhealthy hour, dispatching the letters which I had kept open to the last moment, and calling up two rather particular friends, who were "anxious to see me off" (I take their own words for it.) Morning after morning I trotted away to the ship, under a belief that I was going for good and all, as they have it, in such a case, where one is about "to leave his country for his country's good;" and every day for a week I had to return, to dispatch more letters, and more postscripts, unpack my trunks and papers anew, and explain the cause of my return, as if, like the majesty of buried Denmark, I had no right to appear in any other world than that for which I had departed. So, for a whole week together; and yet, as I live, the very first morning that I ventured to go aboard without any expectation of the ship's sailing, up went her sails, and away went she, and away went I.-Went, moreover, without so much as a tug at the bell-rope of my two friends, near whose very door I passed on my way to the wharf; so assured was I that the wind was not fair.-N.B. To knock is very ungenteel in America-the Niggers" knock, the masters ring there.

Well, after a day, such as I hope never to pass again while I have breath, we got a pilot aboard, mustered our little crew, and put up for the night, somewhere about fifteen miles from Baltimore-dropped anchor, that is, after having achieved about 5ths of our passage in safety. Nothing very wonderful had occurred so far. The water was quite smooth, our captain full of courage, our ship in a river, the sea a great way off, and a safe shore on both sides of our path. If we had been cast away, therefore, we might have had our choice of earth in two states, Maryland and Virginia, for building a hut, playing Crusoe, and hoaxing the natives. "Well pilot, how's the weather?" said the captain, who stood near me, after looking up to see what they were at overhead, very much as if though he had given up the command of the ship for awhile he was not altogether at ease. "How's the weather? snow hard yet?" Ugh!" was the reply; "ugh!" with eyes directed another way, "comin' on a blow; snowin' as hard as it can be, and as thick (meaning the weather) as thick as't can be." "Holloa! Mr. Fish;" said the captain, " we must take care to let go another anchor afore night." "6 Ay, ay, sir!-all clear, sir;" continued the pilot, "all clear, sir, ready to let go."" 'Bout thirty fathoms o' that iron chain abaft the windlass," added Mr. Fish (the mate.) I hurried below.

I had a book or two of great value to read, written by-no matter whom; with a bad novel or two, by somebody else; a good one by Hogg; and a heap of grammars, wherewith I hoped to qualify myself on the voyage for a free communication with the people here. I had, moreover, a manuscript, which I had resolved to copy, and, if possible,

improve on the passage; the manuscript of a novel, the history of which will be rather curious before I get through. I find, on referring to my papers, that I had called it BROTHER JONATHAN at first; and that, afterwards, for a reason which will be made to appear, I changed it for THE YANKEE, and then back again to Brother Jonathan. But more of this by and bye: the day went over, as I have said before-the first day of our voyage-and although I had much to do, books to read and books to study, papers to write and papers to copy, I had done just nothing at all; such was the effect of my transfer from the quiet of a snug, warm library, where I could study for ever without fear, to the cabin of a ship, where I could not blow my nose without being overheard by the whole crew from the security and repose of a room with a floor, which, whatever else it might be, was not very much up till after dinner, to a crowded, low, " cat-a-cornered" affair (from quatre-coined, je crois) with a shifting inclined plain for a floor, and with walls, upon which every moveable thing appeared as if the laws of gravitation had no power over it-and where a heavy barometer, which had leave to swing where it chose, appeared to hold itself up, as it were, by main strength, out of the place into which it would have gone, if it had been so hung up, ashore.

The captain was a very good fellow, ac-tíve and spry, and averse to uproar; the crew, orderly enough, and quiet enough, I dare say, for the crew of a ship; and yet, such a noise! every half hour such a pulling of ropes, and rattling of blocks, one party getting their sealegs up, another scrubbing the deck with their brooms, or scraping it with scrapers; a third preparing to clear away-a fourth helping "Chips," the carpenter (as you say Coach and Boots here, when you speak to a coachman or a boot-black) helping Chips to secure the trunks of the passengers below, with "cleats," which appeared altogether out of proportion to the necessity of the case. Little did we know then of what is called rough weather at sea: we should have been rather shy of our jokes, if we had-jokes, which the sailors appeared to enjoy at the time prodigiously, the droll dogs, hitching up their trowsers belike, with a sort of sea-smile, at every word or two of the cabin passengers, while the better jokes of the steerage people, who had been to sea before, I guess, were unheeded; standing away on one leg; interchanging a look with the pilot; shifting their "cuds" in the cheek, or spitting a yard or so to windward, (contrary to their old maxim, never to throw any thing to windward, except ashes and hot water,) a full yard or so through their teeth, whenever we were particularly smart on the huge pieces of wood.

At last, however, night came with a heavy sleet and a heavy fog, a drowsy, wet, cold atmosphere, like the easterly winds which are felt by the good people of this country, if you will take their word for it, when they are leagues and leagues from the shore, through, not merely "triple bars of brass or steel," but through a foot or two of substantial brick wall, and a heap of rose blankets (the shop) and before the weathercock turns, or the barometer falls. It grew dark, very dark; not a glimpse of the sky, nor a glimpse of the water could be had; the noise died away; every thing was quiet aboard, quiet as the grave-nothing to be heard but the water rippling against the sides of the ship, and heaving with a strange, deep weighty clangour, and a perpetual echo

at her stern. So, aware that I should not sleep if I turned in, (as we sailors have it,) I began to describe a vision of ships-a beautiful deception, which had occurred in the after part of the day, while three large steam-boats, larger than you ever meet with here, (two from Philadelphia and one from " Norfok Virginny") and four or five stout ships were in sight, all coming up, sail after sail, and flag after flag, out of the sea smoke, and appearing by fits and starts, patch after patch, as it were, piecemeal, in the sunshine that broke forth every minute or two, with a beautiful quick brightness, through the routed sea fog, and wandered away, flash after flash, like the light of a cannon, over what appeared, through the grey, drifting atmosphere, like a fleet of gigantic ships, moving about here and there, on every side of us, and overtopping our ship. That over and I should have made a beautiful poem of it, and called it the VISION of SHIPS, without more ado, and before I left my chair, had I not been sick of poetrythat over, I made a sketch for another novel. I began by supposing that a youth (a middle-aged youth) had embarked for the shores of another world; that after being deterred for a great while, day after day, and week after week, by the wind or the sky, the sunshine broke out all at once, over the smooth deep, where his brave ship lay, with a spell upon her; that instantly her frost-covered sails were dripping with fire; that a wind arose from the sea, and that she began to move at the sound thereof, and woke up, as if she were a live creature, with all her "beauty and bravery," as your Mr. Canning said not long ago (not long ago, to be sure; but afterwards-I pray you to observe that-afterwards, by my faith!) in a passage of wonderful beauty and bravery, more wonderful, I do say, than ever issued from the mouth of mortal man, about a ship of war-that superb spectacle of the sea-(I am not after a place.) Well-so far so good, but here a new thought struck me away went my sketch for another novel, and away went my vision of ships! A new thought! was I not going to Europe? was I not going to travel, God knows where, and God knows how? And, after a while, should I not be under the necessity of being over-persuaded by a few friends, the judicious few, to give my travels to the age? to give them, as other people give theirs, I mean-at so much a-head? and if SO- -I caught my breath: if so, should I not require a preface? undoubt-ed-ly! So, I dashed off a preface on the spot, for the very book, (the "little book," I should say, perhaps, like the anointed Southey, or the dear little book, perhaps, like the fair creatures that read him*) a preface on the spot, for the very book which I am now writing, -the very PREFACE too, a part of which I now give.

It has long been a matter of enquiry with me why travellers are so little in the habit of recording their sensations and thoughts while they are fresh-their emotions instead of their recollections. Why do they travel as they do, year after year, age after age, in the very same path, to the very same step? Why do they march, wherever they go, with heads up, toes out, and shoulders back? Why do they never lounge about, with a natural air, between the hedge-rows and along the bye

"Go little book!" says the Doctor. Are the two first words a compound appellative or not? I should like to hear the publisher's opinion: a go-little-book may be very expressive. Or should we say-go! little book? That were uncourteous, I think, if said by a reader; uncourteous though it were said in this way-go! dear little book.—Warburton.