plements of study. Whatever may have been your past assiduity, you must be sensible that as yet you have but reached the threshold of true knowledge; but at the same time, you have the advantage that you are still very young, and have ample time to learn."

Here our conference ended. I walked out of the study, a very different being from what I was on entering it. I had gone in with the air of a professor about to deliver a lecture; I came out like a student, who had failed in his examination, and been degraded in his class.

"Very young," and "on the threshold of knowledge!" This was extremely flattering to one who had considered himself an accomplished scholar and profound philosopher!

"It is singular," thought I; "there seems to have been a spell upon my faculties ever since I have been in this house. I certainly have not been able to do myself justice. Whenever I have undertaken to advise, I have had the tables turned upon me. It must be that I am strange and diffident among people I am not accustomed to. I wish they could hear me talk at home!"

"After all," added I, on farther reflection, "after all, there is a great deal of force in what Mr. Somerville has said. Somehow or other, these men of the world do now and then hit upon remarks that would do credit to a philosopher. Some of his general observations came so home, that I almost thought they were meant for myself. His advice about adopting a system of study is very judicious. I will immediately

put it in practice. My mind shall operate henceforward with the regularity of clockwork."

How far I succeeded in adopting this plan, how I fared in the further pursuit of knowledge, and how I succeeded in my suit to Julia Somerville, may afford matter for a further communication to the public, if this simple record of my early life is fortunate enough to excite any curiosity.

THE BERMUDAS.

A SHAKESPEARIAN RESEARCH.

"Who did not think, till within these foure yeares, but that these islands had been rather a habitation for Divells, than fit for men to dwell in? Who did not hate the name, when hee was on land, and shun the place when he was on the seas? But behold the misprision and conceits of the world! For true and large experience hath now told us, it is one of the sweetest paradises that be upon earth." "A Plaine Descript. of the Barmudas: " 1613.

In the course of our voyage home from England, our ship had been struggling for two or three weeks with perverse head-winds and a stormy sea. It was in the month of May, yet the weather had at times a wintry sharpness, and it was apprehended that we were in the neighbourhood of floating islands of ice, which, at that season of the year, drift out of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and sometimes occasion the wreck of noble ships.

A

Wearied out by the continued opposition of the elements, our captain bore away to the south, in hopes of catching the expiring breath of the trade-winds, and making what is called the southern passage. few days wrought, as it were, a magical "sea change" in everything around us. We seemed to emerge into a different world. The late dark and angry sea, lashed up into roaring and swashing surges, became calm and sunny; the rude winds died away; and gradually a light breeze sprang up directly aft, filling out every sail, and wafting us smoothly along on an even keel. The air softened into a bland and de

lightful temperature. Dolphins began to play about us; the nautilus came floating by, like a fairy ship, with its mimic sail and rainbow tints; and flying fish, from time to time, made their short excursive flights, and occasionally fell upon the deck. The cloaks and overcoats in which we had hitherto wrapped ourselves, and moped about the vessel, were thrown aside; for a summer warmth had succeeded to the late wintry chills. Sails were stretched as awnings over the quarter-deck, to protect us from the mid-day sun. Under these we lounged away the day in luxurious indolence, musing, with half-shut eyes, upon the quiet ocean. The night was scarcely less beautiful than the day. The rising moon sent a quivering column of silver along the undulating surface of the deep, and, gradually climbing the heaven, lit up our towering topsails and swelling mainsails, and spread a pale, mysterious light around. As our ship made her whispering way through this dreamy world of waters, every boisterous sound on board was charmed to silence; and the low whistle, or drowsy song of a sailor from the forecastle, or the tinkling of a guitar, and the soft warbling of a female voice from the quarter-deck, seemed to derive a witching melody from the scene and hour. I was reminded of Oberon's exquisite description of music and moonlight on the ocean:

Indeed, I was in the very mood to conjure up all the imaginary beings with which poetry has peopled

old ocean, and almost ready to fancy I heard the distant song of the mermaid, or the mellow shell of the triton, and to picture to myself Neptune and Amphitrite with all their pageant sweeping along the dim horizon.

A day or two of such fanciful voyaging brought us in sight of the Bermudas, which first looked like mere summer-clouds peering above the quiet ocean. All day we glided along in sight of them, with just wind enough to fill our sails; and never did land appear more lovely. They were clad in emerald verdure beneath the serenest of skies: not an angry wave broke upon their quiet shores, and small fishing craft, riding on the crystal waves, seemed as if hung in air. It was such a scene that Fletcher pictured to himself, when he extolled the halcyon lot of the fisherman:

Ah! would thou knew'st how much it better were
To bide among the simple fisher-swains:
No shrieking owl, no night-crow lodgeth here,
Nor is our simple pleasure mixed with pains.

Our sports begin with the beginning year;

In calms, to pull the leaping fish to land,

In roughs, to sing and dance along the yellow sand.

In contemplating these beautiful islands, and the peaceful sea around them, I could hardly realize that these were the "still vext Bermoothes" of Shakespeare, once the dread of mariners, and infamous in the narratives of the early discoverers, for the dangers and disasters which beset them. Such, however, was the case; and the islands derived additional interest in my eyes, from fancying that I could trace in their early history, and in the superstitious notions connected with them, some of the elements of Shakespeare's wild and beautiful drama of the Tempest. I shall take the liberty of citing a few historical facts in support of this idea, Chronicles of Wolfert's Roost. 7