when well filled with calipash and calipee, goes contentedly home to tell his money, and expects no more pleasure from his throat during the next twenty-four hours. Hence I suppose Dr. South took that elegant comparison of the joys of a speculative man to the solemn silence of an Archimedes over a problem, and those of a glutton to the stillness of a sow at her wash-a simile which, if it became the pulpit at all, could only become it in the afternoon.

Whereas in those potations which the mind seems to enjoy, rather than the bodily appetite, there is happily no such satiety; but the more a man drinks, the more he desires; as if, like Mark Antony in Dryden, his appetite increased with feeding, and this to a filthily immoderate degree, without any exhibition of shame. Hence, as with the gang of Captain Ulysses, ensues so total a transformation that the man no more continues what he was. Perhaps he ceases for a time to be at all; or, though he may retain the same outward form and figure he had before, yet is his nobler part, as we are taught to call it, so changed, that, instead of being the same man, he scarce remembers what he was a few hours before. And this transformation, being once obtained, is so easily preserved by the same potations, which induced no satiety, that the captain in vain sends or goes in quest of his crew. They know him no longer, or, if they do, they acknowledge not his power, having, indeed, as entirely forgotten themselves as if they had taken a large draught of the river of Lethe.

Nor is the captain always sure of even finding out the place to which Circe hath conveyed them. There are many of those houses in every port-town. Nay, there are some where the sorceress doth not trust only to her drugs, but hath instruments of a different kind to execute her purposes,

by whose means the tar is effectually secreted from the knowledge and pursuit of his captain. This would, indeed, be very fatal, were it not for one circumstance, that the sailor is seldom provided with the proper bait for these harpies. However, the contrary sometimes happens, as these harpies will bite at almost anything, and will snap at a pair of silver buttons, or buckles, as surely as at the specie itself. Nay, sometimes they are so voracious that the very naked hook will go down, and the jolly young sailor is sacrificed for his own sake.

In vain, at such a season as this, would the vows of a pious heathen have prevailed over Neptune, Æolus, or any other marine deity. In vain would the prayers of a Christian captain be attended with the like success. The wind may change how it pleases while all hands are on shore; the anchor would remain firm in the ground, and the ship would continue in durance, unless, like other forcible prison-breakers, it forcibly got loose for no good purpose.

Now, as the favour of winds and courts, and such like, is always to be laid hold on at the very first motion, for within twenty-four hours all may be changed again; so, in the former case, the loss of a day may be the loss of a voyage; for though it may appear to persons not well skilled in navigation, who see ships meet and sail by each other, that the wind blows sometimes east and west, north and south, backward and forward, at the same instant, yet, certain it is that the land is so contrived that even the same wind will not, like the same horse, always bring a man to the end of his journey, but that the gale which the mariner prayed heartily for yesterday he may as heartily deprecate tomorrow; while all use and benefit which would have arisen to him from the westerly wind of to-morrow may be totally

lost and thrown away by neglecting the offer of the easterly blast which blows to-day.

Hence ensues grief and disreputation to the innocent captain, loss and disappointment to the worthy merchant, and not seldom great prejudice to the trade of a nation whose manufactures are thus liable to lie unsold in a foreign warehouse, the market being forestalled by some rival whose sailors are under a better discipline. To guard against these inconveniences, the prudent captain takes every precaution in his power; he makes the strongest contracts with his crew, and thereby binds them so firmly that none but the greatest or least of men can break through them with impunity; but for one of these two reasons, which I will not determine, the sailor, like his brother fish, the eel, is too slippery to be held, and plunges into his element with perfect impunity.

To speak a plain truth, there is no trusting to any contract with one whom the wise citizens of London call a bad man; for, with such a one, though your bond be ever so strong, it will prove in the end good for nothing.

What, then, is to be done in this case? What, indeed, but to call in the assistance of that tremendous magistrate, the justice of peace, who can, and often doth, lay good and bad men in equal durance; and though he seldom cares to stretch his bonds to what is great, never finds anything too minute for their detention, but will hold the smallest reptile alive so fast in his noose that he can never get out till he is let drop through it.

Why, therefore, upon the breach of those contracts, should not an immediate application be made to the nearest magistrate of this order, who should be empowered to convey the delinquent either to ship or to prison, at the election of the captain, to be fettered by the leg in either place.

But, as the case now stands, the condition of this poor captain without any commission, and of this absolute commander without any power, is much worse than we have hitherto shown it to be; for, notwithstanding all the aforesaid contracts to sail in the good ship the Elizabeth, if the sailor should, for better wages, find it more his interest to go on board the better ship the Mary, either before their setting out or on their speedy meeting in some port, he may prefer the latter without any other danger than that of "doing what he ought not to have done," contrary to a rule which he is seldom Christian enough to have much at heart, while the captain is generally too good a Christian to punish a man out of revenge only, when he is to be at a considerable expense for so doing. There are many other deficiencies in our laws relating to maritime affairs, and which would probably have been long since corrected, had we any seamen in the House of Commons. Not that I would insinuate that the Legislature wants a supply of many gentlemen in the seaservice; but as these gentlemen are by their attendance in the House unfortunately prevented from ever going to sea, and there learning what they might communicate to their landed brethren, these latter remain as ignorant in that branch of knowledge as they would be if none but courtiers and foxhunters had been elected into Parliament, without a single fish among them.-" A Voyage to Lisbon."

Partridge at the Play

In the first row, then, of the first gallery, did Mr. Jones, Mrs. Miller, her youngest daughter, and Partridge, take their places. Partridge immediately declared it was the finest place he had ever been in. When the first music was played, he said, "It was a wonder how so many fiddlers could play at one time without putting one another out." Nor could he help observing, with a sigh, when all the candles were lighted, That here were candles enough burned in one night to keep an honest poor family for a twelvemonth."

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As soon as the play, which was "Hamlet, Prince of Denmark," began, Partridge was all attention, nor did he break silence till the entrance of the ghost, upon which he asked Jones, "What man that was in the strange dress, something," said he, "like what I have seen in a picture? Sure it is not armour, is it?" Jones answered, "That is the ghost." To which Partridge replied with a smile, "Persuade me to that, sir, if you can. Though I can't say I ever actually saw a ghost in my life, yet I am certain I should know one if I saw him better than that comes to. No, no, sir; ghosts don't appear in such dresses as that, neither." In this mistake, which caused much laughter in the neighbourhood of Partridge, he was suffered to continue until the scene between the ghost and Hamlet, when Partridge gave that credit to Mr. Garrick which he had denied to Jones, and fell into so violent a trembling that his knees knocked against each other. Jones asked him what was the matter, and whether he was afraid of the warrior on the stage. "Oh, la! sir," said he, "I perceive now it is what you told me. I am not afraid of