regretted the good things we were likely to leave behind us by the fisherman's neglect; I might give it a worse name, for he faithfully promised to execute the commission, which he had had abundant opportunity to do; but nautica fides deserves as much to be proverbial as ever Punica fides could formerly have done. Nay, when we consider that the Carthaginians came from the Phenicians, who are supposed to have produced the first mariners, we may probably see the true reason of the adage, and it may open a field of very curious discoveries to the antiquarian.

We were, however, too eager to pursue our voyage to suffer anything we left behind us to interrupt our happiness, which, indeed, many agreeable circumstances conspired to advance. The weather was inexpressibly pleasant, and we were all seated on the deck, when our canvas began to swell with the wind. We had likewise in our view above thirty other sail around us, all in the same situation. Here an observation occurred to me, which, perhaps, though extremely obvious, did not offer itself to every individual in our little fleet: when I perceived with what different success we proceeded under the influence of a superior power, which, while we lay almost idle ourselves, pushed us forward on our intended voyage, and compared this with the slow progress which we had made in the morning, of ourselves, and without any such assistance, I could not help reflecting how often the greatest abilities lie wind-bound as it were in life; or, if they venture out and attempt to beat the seas, they struggle in vain against wind and tide, and,

if they have not sufficient prudence to put back, are most probably cast away on the rocks and quicksands which are every day ready to devour them.

It was now our fortune to set out melioribus avibus. The wind freshened so briskly in our poop that the shore appeared to move from us as fast as we did from the shore. The captain declared he was sure of a wind, meaning its continuance; but he had disappointed us so often that he had lost all credit. However, he kept his word a little better now, and we lost sight of our native land as joyfully, at least, as it is usual to regain it.

Sunday.-The next morning the captain told me he thought himself thirty miles to the westward of Plymouth, and before evening declared that the Lizard Point, which is the extremity of Cornwall, bore several leagues to leeward. Nothing remarkable passed this day, except the captain's devotion, who, in his own phrase, summoned all hands to prayers, which were read by a common sailor upon deck, with more devout force and address than they are commonly read by a country curate, and received with more decency and attention by the sailors than are usually preserved in city congregations. I am indeed assured, that if any such affected disregard of the solemn office in which they were engaged, as I have seen practised by fine gentlemen and ladies, expressing a kind of apprehension lest they should be suspected of being really in earnest in their devotion, had been shewn here, they would have contracted the contempt of the whole audience. To say the truth, from what I

observed in the behaviour of the sailors in this voyage, and on comparing it with what I have formerly seen of them at sea and on shore, I am convinced that on land there is nothing more idle and dissolute; in their own element there are no persons near the level of their degree who live in the constant practice of half so many good qualities. They are, for much the greater part, perfect masters of their business, and always extremely alert, and ready in executing it, without any regard to fatigue or hazard. The soldiers themselves are not better disciplined nor more obedient to orders than these whilst abroad; they submit to every difficulty which attends their calling with chearfulness, and no less virtues and patience and fortitude are exercised by them every day of their lives.

All these good qualities, however, they always leave behind them on shipboard; the sailor out of water is, indeed, as wretched an animal as the fish out of water; for though the former hath, in common with amphibious animals, the bare power of existing on the land, yet if he be kept there any time he never fails to become a nuisance.

The ship having had a good deal of motion since she was last under sail, our women returned to their sickness, and I to my solitude; having, for twentyfour hours together, scarce opened my lips to a single person. This circumstance of being shut up within the circumference of a few yards, with a score of human creatures, with not one of whom it was possible to converse, was perhaps so rare as scarce ever to have happened before, nor could it ever happen to one who disliked it more than my

self, or to myself at a season when I wanted more food for my social disposition, or could converse less wholesomely and happily with my Own thoughts. To this accident, which fortune opened to me in the Downs, was owing the first serious thought which I ever entertained of enrolling myself among the voyage-writers; some of the most amusing pages, if, indeed, there be any which deserve that name, were possibly the production of the most disagreeable hours which ever haunted the author.

Monday.-At noon the captain took an observation, by which it appeared that Ushant bore some leagues northward of us, and that we were just entering the bay of Biscay. We had advanced a very few miles in this bay before we were entirely becalmed: we furled our sails, as being of no use to us while we lay in this most disagreeable situation, more detested by the sailors than the most violent tempest: we were alarmed with the loss of a fine piece of salt beef, which had been hung in the sea to freshen it; this being, it seems, the strange property of salt-water. The thief was immediately suspected, and presently afterwards taken by the sailors. He was, indeed, no other than a huge shark, who, not knowing when he was well off, swallowed another piece of beef, together with a great iron crook on which it was slung, and by which he was dragged into the ship.

I should scarce have mentioned the catching this shark, though so exactly conformable to the rules and practice of voyage-writing, had it not been for a strange circumstance that attended it. This was the recovery of the stolen beef out of the shark's

maw, where it lay unchewed and undigested, and whence, being conveyed into the pot, the flesh, and the thief that had stolen it, joined together in furnishing variety to the ship's crew.

During this calm we likewise found the mast of a large vessel, which the captain thought had lain at least three years in the sea. It was stuck all over with a little shell-fish or reptile, called a barnacle, and which probably are the prey of the rock-fish, as our captain calls it, asserting that it is the finest fish in the world; for which we are obliged to confide entirely to his taste; for, though he struck the fish with a kind of harping-iron, and wounded him, I am convinced, to death, yet he could not possess himself of his body; but the poor wretch escaped to linger out a few hours with probably great torments.

In the evening our wind returned, and so briskly, that we ran upwards of twenty leagues before the next day's [Tuesday's] observation, which brought us to lat. 47° 42'. The captain promised us a very speedy passage through the bay; but he deceived us, or the wind deceived him, for it so slackened at sunset, that it scarce carried us a mile in an hour during the whole succeeding night.

Wednesday.—A gale struck up a little after sunrising, which carried us between three and four knots or miles an hour. We were this day at noon about the middle of the bay of Biscay, when the wind once more deserted us, and we were so entirely becalmed, that we did not advance a mile in many hours. My fresh-water reader will perhaps conceive no unpleasant idea from this calm; but it affected