succeeding stage ought to correct the errors of the preceding one. For does not Hobbes lay down the maxim, that man is an improving animal? Now for the deduction. As a child, and in my childhood, you caused me to fancy that I fell in love with you, because you told me that you had fallen in love with me. Very well; and then because you told me that those who love each other must do all that each other asked, you made me swear (I believe you are right when you say it was by the moon) that I would marry you when I had become of age, and until that time, would keep it a secret. Now, honoured guardian, according to our principles, there was nothing wrong in all this; indeed, in the Romances, and other French writers, which you have wished me to read, I find many similar instances; but, as lately, I suddenly passed from my childhood into my youthhood, or juvenility, I acknowledge no longer the acts of the individual that constituted my childhood, but must make my youth do all it can to repair that very foolish error of mine, of fancying that I was ever in love with a person old enough, almost, to be my grandfather, and also must hold myself no longer responsible for any engagement that my identity as a child might have entered into.

"This is logic. I will give you French quotations for it, by-andbye. But, to pursue my subject. The individual that occupied my identity as a child had no aversion to longitudinal faces, iron-grey hair, and switch pig-tails, especially the latter; for that individual was fond of pulling it about, and hanging thereunto dolls, bandelors, and other playthings, all similar amusements to which my juvenility abhors. Perhaps, if we both live so long, in my senility the taste for such occupations may return; and then, if we should happen both to be single, I may, or to speak more philosophically, the individual occupying my identity may, be induced again to renew the matrimonial engagement-but understand me perfectlyNEVER TILL THEN!

You see, honoured guardian, the pains I have taken to work out the principles that you were so anxious to instil-through the course of French reading that you recommended to me in the convent―into my youthful bosom.

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I am now going to advert to the indivisibility and indestructibility of thought as bearing upon this argument; and shall, as I suppose that you have not Voltaire by you, quote some pages from his eighth volume--"

What these pages were it is impossible to say, as the above is the only part of this able and argumentative epistle that exists; for, when Mr. Rubasore had read it thus far, or perhaps to the end, he tore it angrily in halves, and flung it among the ashes.

Thus preserved by one of those curious accidents that sometimes

occur, it is to be hoped that this fragment which was not consumed may go down to posterity, with this singularly veracious account of the old Commodore, as a sample of Miss Rosa's powers of composition.

As this communication convinced Mr. Rubasore that the arts of imploring would be entirely useless, instead of cajolery he determined to employ coercion. That he might do so most effectually, and, at the same time, quite legally, he repaired forthwith to his friend Mr. Sharpus; and, as he could not be in worse company, we will there very gladly leave him.

CHAPTER XXIII.

"With words of mystery, the good old man

Screen'd his friend's fault, reproving whilst he screen'd."

OLD PLAY.

GREAT is the pity that an historian cannot conduct three or four operations simultaneously, and give his reader the trifling privilege of ubiquity. I boast not. I am but a worn-out, aged mariner. I have not art in writing. I have no other means of bringing my incidents forward in a level line, than those which the cat employs in conveying her young brood from one place to another. As she takes them up in her mouth, one by one, and drops each before she goes back for another, so do I treat my characters.

On bringing thus forward the love affairs of his nephew, we have left the grim old Commodore a long way behind. Rather a tough mouthful, considering the state of my gums (teeth are matters of history with me), for me to carry with my mouth metaphorical, and place abreast in the line of time with Captain Oliphant. But, as men more foolish than myself have performed exploits much greater, I shall even attempt it. Should I founder, or only flounder, by the way, let it be remembered, that I apologized in anticipation.

Sir Octavius Bacuissart repaired with all haste to Plymouth. Arrived there, he waited on the admiral, received his appointment and instructions, and then immediately went on board the Thunderbolt, and hoisted his broad pennant. At the bare rumour of this appointment, the Thunderbolts were struck all of a heap. The officers were most anxious to get leave to change, and the seamen to exchange without leave. Of the mids, it might be truly said (only it was not strictly true), that they put on sackcloth, and covered their head with ashes; however, they grew dolorous over their grog, and began to calculate the exact degree of pain that the cat-o'-nine-tails usually inflicted upon remarkably young and tender

skins. There was a little-a very little-talk about jumping overboard.

This Thunderbolt was the finest two-decker then in the navy. She was rated as an eighty-gun ship, but carried many more than eighty pieces of ordnance. Hitherto, every one who belonged to her took so much pride in all that concerned her, that they thought to be a Thunderbolt added to the individual dignity of each. This consideration made men and officers resolve to give the old Commodore a short trial; and they were the more confirmed in this, from seeing a great many of the Terrifics-the very Terrifics that the old Commodore had prevented from joining the mutiny by flogging so much, volunteer to serve again under their old commander.

Sir Octavius had paid his first visit, introduced himself to all his officers, grinned good-humouredly at the crew, and inspected the noble ship thoroughly; he returned to the hotel on shore, leaving the Thunderbolts ample food for speculation. They saw, at once, that the old Commodore was not a man to be trifled with; but, upon the whole, the impression that he made upon them was rather favourable.

In the course of a few days, Mr. Underdown, the patient man, joined his friend, Sir Octavius, and reported that Mrs. Oliphant and one of her daughters, apparently a very accomplished young lady, were happily domesticated at Trestletree Hall, and that Miss Rebecca had most solemnly promised to discard her stable-acquaintance, receive her various masters into favour, and reform her manners altogether.

All this was most gratifying to her father. The intelligence also of the arrival of Mr. Underdown had spread, and the good news soon reached on board the Thunderbolt. The reputation he had for courageous calmness, sound discretion, and an over-abounding share of the milk of human kindness, though he would never belong to the navy, was very general in it.

The Commodore's health was now nearly re-established. The consciousness of usefulness, activity of mind and body, a rigidly enforced though self-imposed temperance, but, above all, the hopes of a glorious fight, had, apparently, given back to him some of the best years of his life. No doubt, moments, nay, hours of anguish he was compelled to undergo, when memory would, in spite of himself, present to him his drowning nephew, Augustus, and his sterr. and ghost-like mother. Sins will claim their penalty, even when the tide of our prosperity is at the highest.

After the Commodore had been at Plymouth about a fortnight, one fine Sunday morning he and Underdown repaired on board; his broad pennant was hoisted, the signal made for his squadron to weigh, and about an hour before noon, they stood out of the Sound in excellent order, and then turned their heads up Channel. Every

thing was in the best order on board the Thunderbolt; and, when she was under sail, all the weather-braces hauled taut, and the decks swept, the ship's company was mustered at divisions, and Sir Octavius went round the decks, and surveyed them, man by man. How they felt under the penetrating flashes of his single eye may be understood by one of the forecastle men declaring that the look had gone right through his skull, and had given him a pain on the back of the head, which lasted till grog-time.

However, the review seemed satisfactory to Sir Octavius; for, when he returned to the quarter-deck, he publicly expressed his approbation of their appearance and sailor-like deportment to their captain, which commendation was highly gratifying, coming from the lips of one so thoroughly experienced as was the old Commodore.

Captain Edward Egerton-for, on this cruise, the oid Commodore did not disdain to have a captain of the ship with him-was a gentlemanly man, of about forty years of age, a good officer, a good sailor, and, perhaps, a disciplinarian a little too strict. This is a world of contradictions, and thus we are not wrong in stating that justice may, sometimes, be dealt forth unjustly. That is to say, punishments may be administered, strictly according to her presumed laws, and yet administered most villanously.

Now, Captain Egerton understood not this. There were the articles of war, the written instructions, and the customs of the navy. The men knew them as well as himself. If they infringed them, it was the delinquents, and not he, who brought the torture to their backs. He was but the positive instrument, the appointed automaton, who set the cruel machinery in action. It was thus he argued; bewailed the blindness of British seamen, called himself a most humane man, and flogged on.

Now, with the best intentions, and the most charitable feelings, he was a greater tyrant than was ever the old Commodore at the worst of his tyranny; and the aggregate amount of torture he inflicted upon an equal number of men was more than double. The punishment in the Thunderbolt was, taken altogether, tremendous. Yet, in one sense, the ship's company did not perceive this, for Captain Egerton never flew into a passion, and though, regularly, he turned the hands up for punishment every day, and the cat flew about terribly, yet he did it with so much evident reluctance, talked to the poor culprit with so much sorrow upon the heinousness of his faults, and so plainly showed what article of war had been violated, or what naval custom disregarded, that the crew shrugged up their shoulders, found they could not understand it, and concluded that Captain Egerton was really the compassionate gentleman that he gave himself out to be.

But this captain, with the most honourable intentions, committed

the radical mistake of supposing that punishment was, and ought to be, the end of crime, and not looking upon it only as a means to prevent that end. How few formerly understood this distinction! If, in a crew of five hundred men there were fifty flogged regularly for the fault of drunkenness, and it was found that, under this regularity of punishment, that the drunkenness increased instead of diminished, that particular kind of punishment should It evidently did not work out its end, and the inflicters were only so much the deeper on the debtor's side of the Devil's book, for so much unnecessary torture, and outrages so vile upon humanity.

cease.

The old Commodore had much sounder notions upon the subject, though, in the early part of his career, his passions too often prevented his acting upon them. He had now a little surprise in reserve for the Thunderbolts.

It was time to pipe for dinner,

"Shall we go to punishment, Sir Octavius," said Captain Egerton, "before we pipe to dinner ?-there is a very heavy black list.” "You may turn the hands up. Will you favour me with that paper ?"

The hands were turned up accordingly, and the prisoners brought aft in custody of the master-at-arms, on the main-deck. As usual, the principal offences were drunkenness, and omissions of duty or impertinences consequent upon it.

The old Commodore read the list aloud, bidding each culprit stand forth as his name was called.

"Hark ye, my lads," said the old gentleman, "it is very lucky for you that I have happened to ship myself on a Sunday. Now, mark ye me, I seldom forgive; but I am very easily managed. We will not flog on a Sunday, for the sake of the scourged and crucified Author of our religion. I do not think that he would approve of it."

The men were struck with astonishment, and when he reverently took off his hat, and showed the dark mark of the enemy's sword on his bald head, as he referred to our Saviour, for the first time for many months, something like religious awe stole over them.

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Now, my men," he continued, "as I think suspense a torture almost as bad as the cat, all I can do is to request Captain Egerton's permission to tear up this list;" then, casting it over the gangway into the sea - "and may its contents be borne away from our memory as the wind scatters those fragments before us.

'But you must all of you remember that I have served my country before most of you were born. I say it, not as a boast, but to impress it upon you that I know my duty, and know how to make you do yours. can manage you; and, I tell you, I am myself very easily managed. I seldom pardon, though I am slow