and excite desire. Poor man-he did not see the in his boat, who appeared to be fishing at different end of it! "He had gone to Chantilly, to prepare a fête. The king arrived; the supper was served. By some mistake two tables were without roasts. My honor is ruined, said he. Fortunately the table of the king was served. This restored courage to poor Vatel. Still for twelve nights he did not sleep. He told his friend Gourville and Gourville told the Prince. The Prince came to console Vatel; nothing could be finer,' said his highness. Monseigneur,' replied Vatel,' your goodness overpowers me; but I know very well, that two of the tables were without roasts.' 666 "A royal breakfast was to be served towards the close of the fête. Vatel was all anxiety. He had ordered the choicest dishes of the kingdom. "The morning came and Vatel was up at four. All were asleep; no one was stirring, except one fish-dealer, who brought two small parcels of Marée. "Is this all,' said Vatel. ""Yes sir,' said the man ;-not knowing that orders had been sent to every port along the coast. "Vatel sought his friend. 'Gourville,' said he, mon ami, I shall never survive this.' 666 Pooh,' said Gourville. "Vatel went to his chamber, and placing his sword against the door, pushed it through his body, and fell upon the floor. stations, for Barbel. After a few salutations had been passed between us, and we had become a little acquainted, I took occasion to inquire what di version he had met with. "Sir,' said he, 'I have had bad luck to-day, for I fish for Barbel, which, you know, are not to be caught like gudgeons.' "It is very true,' answered I, but what you want in tale I suppose you make up in weight.' "Why Sir,' said he, that is just what happens; it is true I like the sport, and love to catch fish, but my great delight is going after them. I am a man in years, and have used the sea all my life, (he had been an India captain,) but I mean to go no more. I have bought that house which you see there, (pointing to it,) for the sake of fishing. I get into my boat on Monday morning and fish on till Saturday night for Barbel, as I told you, for that is my delight; and this I have done for a month together, and in all that time, I have had but one bite."" A victim of misplaced confidence indeed! Before we quit this subject, as regards either sport generally, or barbelism particularly, let us just look at the remarks of Sir John, upon the attested Calendar, sent to the Catcher to Mr. Bartholomew Lome, in Drury Lane, February 24th, 1766, in which he distinctly registers the fact, that "La Marée arrives. They search for Vatel; they" from the year 1753, to the year 1763, being the go to his chamber; they knock-there is no answer; they break open the door. They find him bathed in blood, and stone dead. "Pauvre Vatel!' said the Prince." result of ten years, one month and five days ang. ling, he had given to the public,' i. e. caught, forty-seven thousand, one hundred and twenty fish." Whereupon, Sir John-and we give it as a set Pauvre Vatel say we-he died a martyr to the off to the patient endurance of the maritime barbelcause of fish. What devotedness! fisher at Shepperton-says, "If I had had the honor "Think of them, eat of them, then if you can." of an acquaintance with this keen and laborious sportsman, I might possibly, at times, have checkSir John Hawkins in his comments upon Wal- ed him in the ardor of his pursuit, by reminding ton, says, “Fishing for Barbel is at best but a dull him of that excellent maxim, ' ne quid nimis,— recreation-they are a sullen fish, and bite but nothing too much. The pleasure of angling conslowly. The angler drops in his bait-the bullet sists not so much in the number of fish we catch, at the bottom of the line fixes it to one spot of the as in the exercise of our art, the gratification of river. Tired with waiting for a bite, he generally our hopes, and the reward of our skill and ingelays down his rod, and exercising the patience of nuity. Were it possible for an angler to be sure a setting dog, waits till he sees the top of his rod of every cast of his fly, so that for six hours his move; then begins a struggle between him and the fish, which he calls his sport and that being over, he lands his prize, fresh baits his hook, and lays it in for another." As dull as Sir John seems to make out this, which we do call sport, the anecdote he gives immediately after the above passage, exhibits the feelings of an inveterate angler in a somewhat striking point of view. "Living," says he,“ some years ago in a village, on the banks of the Thames, I was used in the hook should never come home without a fish on it, angling would be no more a recreation than the sawing of stone or the pumping of water." This is perfectly true-the excitement depends upon the uncertainty. One word more as to Barbel:In the Quarterly Review, No. 133, under the head of "Angling," we are introduced to a certain Dame Juliana, (a sister, it is supposed, to Richard Lord Berners, of Essex,) who became Prioress of Sopewell in the year 1460. The barbyll is a sweete fysshe; but it is a summer months to be much on the river. It chan- quasy meete, and a perylous for manny's body. For, ced that at Shepperton, where I had been for a comynly, he giveth an introduxion to the febres: few days, I frequently passed an elderly gentleman and yf he be eaten rawe-hear it not Comus-he may be cause of mannys dethe wyche hath oft be the wonders of nature with learned admiration, or seen." find some harmless sport to content him, and pass away the time without offence to God or man." The reviewer goes on to say, "That the raw Barbel ought to cause the death of any civilized, unfeathered two legged animal, all cooks will allow; that such an event should have been frequent, can only be accounted for by the delightful state of unsophisticated nature, which prevailed in the fif teenth century." Here is a stray fancy from the worthy Cotton: "The angler is free From the cares that Degree, Finds itself with so often tormented; And although we should slay Each a hundred a day, 'Tis a slaughter needs ne'er be repented." "Away then, away, We lose sport by delay, But first leave our sorrows behind us; And a fishing she never can find us." One of the best piscatory puns on record, was perpetrated by Finn the actor. Playing with a well-known and popular actress by the name of Herring, a scene occurs in which he asks her hand; adding at the same time that "nothing was more natural than a fin to be attached to a herring." The God fish is a native of China, where they This is a joyous, free, and in the main, a faith-go by the name of Kin Yu, and are highly esteemful picture of that amusement which over-wise ed. The most beautiful kinds are taken in a lake people are apt to underrate and contemn. Some at the foot of a mountain, called Tsyen King. one touchingly says, “there is a calm repose min- They were first introduced into England about the gled with constant interest in the sport, most sooth-year 1691, but were not generally known till 30 ing and most delightful to those who, worried with years afterward. The training of these scaly business, hurried by engagements, are doomed to celestials is perfectly astonishing. When kept in the noise and bustle of great cities, and the sense- pools they are taught to rise on the surface of the less din of what is called society. The quietude water by a sound of a bell, to be fed. of the beautiful stream-the freshness of the airthe fragrance of the flowers-the music of the birds, form a combination invaluable to him whose head is over-worked, and whose heart is not at ease. It yields a balm, which those alone who have tasted it, can appreciate.” Some speculation has been expended upon the inquiry, why a fish which lives in a salt element should be fresh? The good Isaac Walton would pronounce this mere carping, and very properly. Such theorists should be taken cum grano salis for the salt of their wit is any thing but Attic. The * complete angler” would answer him in one of his melodious snatches thus: "I care not, I, to fish in seas, In civil bounds I fain would keep content with the "small fry" of his own happy England, whose fresh waters furnish an abundant and harmless pastime; where the angler in cheerful solitude fears not the coiled snake or the lurking crocodile. But let him speak :-" To some friendly cottage we can stroll with our day's spoils, where the landlady is good, and the daughter innocent and beautiful; where the room is cleanly, with lavender in the sheets, and twenty ballads stuck about the wall! Where we can enjoy the company of a talkative brother sportsman, have his trouts dressed for supper, tell tales, sing old tunes, or make a catch! There he can talk about The paper and pearl Nautilus, are among the most curious and interesting of the shell fish. The Argonaut is six or eight inches in length, and but little thicker or stronger than paper-it is found in the Mediterranean sea and the Indian ocean. This is the famous Nautilus of the ancients, to whom it is supposed to have furnished the idea of navigation, as the poet sings "Learn of the little Nautilus to sail, Spread the thin oar, and catch the rising gale." When it means to sail, it discharges a quantity of water from its shell, by which it is rendered lighter than the surrounding fluid, and of course rises to the surface. Here it extends upwards two of its arms, each of which is furnished at the extremity with an oval membrane, that serves as a sail, the other six arms hang over the sides of the shell and supply the use of oars and a rudder. "Two feet they upward rise and steady keep; In some places when the sea is calm, great numbers may be seen diverting themselves by sailing about in this manner; but as soon as the storm of the fate of the "President," how should we rises, or any thing gives them disturbance, they re- bless his utterance! How many hearts would tract their arms, take in as much water as renders thrill to know the worst! Of these and many more, them heavier than that in which they swim, and sucked down thy mighty maw amidst roaring winds sink to the bottom. The striking characteristic of fanned for destruction from the gentlest breeze that the Pearl Nautilus, is the extraordinary structure ever wooed from out thy hollow caves; that howlof the internal part, which is formed into thinly or ing spirit set up in strife with the waves, over whose partly separate chambers, each communicating with hissing tops despair's long shriek is rung in the ear the rest, by a small tubular hole near the centre. of death and silenced by the Almighty's judgment. How vividly the spirit of old times comes back Of others, too, whose history is forever locked in upon us, when we recall the reminiscences of our thy azure world, they are witnesses. He who fishing days; with a hoop-pole for a rod and a felt the blessed breath of home on his lips, (home crooked pin for a hook, we sallied forth. How which he never saw again,) and with swelling heart cautiously we peeped over the bank and watched strained his weary eyes for the first sight of land, with intense anxiety for a sight of the monster has gone down a ghastly dweller in thy sunless minnows that were to give us a bite. Good gra- realm. Erect and tall with eyes turned up towards cious! what a twitch we gave when he nibbled. the sky, the form life could not bury, thy parted The hoop-pole parted in the middle and while one- waters has given up again, to teach man his feeblehalf went floating down the current, fish, line and ness and death its might. Wherever roll thy restall, we went sprawling on our back, flourishing our less waves plunging in Norland seas, “drifting in legs in the air with the other. With manhood the bright Azores," sweeping round Southern isles came a more rational mode of "enlisting in the or climbing the giant remnants of a runic world; thos line," and there are places to which we can now art still the same vast emblem of the human heart, in repair, that have become pictures in memory's gal- whose swift currents glide storms that shake the Unilery. Away from the homes of men we strolled, verse. "Boundless, endless and sublime," the upper prompted by a desire to be alone with Nature in deep lights with its mysterious fires thy world at night her sternest and serenest moods,--fishing afforded and both are mirrors in each other's face. When the an excuse for this. One favorite haunt was a moun- world was deluged, the sky let down its flood to tain, whose summit holds sparkling up a silver lake, swell thy wrath, and both became the workers of set in a frame work of summer's green and au- God's awful vengeance. As one ceased, the other tumn's gold, the brightest mirror in which the sky fled back, and a pure and perfect world above ever reflected the changes of its smiles or smile of God awoke." frowns. A birch canoe drifts upon its bosom, the It is generally asserted and believed, that in every willing companion of the winds, that floating by portion of the animal world, the lowest tribes are just dimpled its crystal surface, and then go wailing inhabitants of water. To exist on the land redown the sunless glen in many a mournful syllable, quires a more perfect organization, a greater intelrepeating the last low dirges of the dying year. ligence, a more considerable share of strength and Our old friend, the swallow, which we have watched for hours together, has dipped his rapid wing there unmolested, and while his shadow crept along thy bosom like a living thing, he has dropped down as if to kiss it in the flood and then away again into the bosom of the sky but he has had his rollicking all to himself; this season we have sown our seeds of care and thought in other places. When will the harvest come? Amid such scenes as these the soul has often drunk from the selectest fountains of peace and the heart been taught other lessons than those which prompt us to destroy life in any shape or form, there the silvery perch and timid trout have wasted all their wariness; our tackle has never profaned their pure and placid world, in the activity. This is the case with the finny tribes. Inhabitants of a dense element, easily supported in any altitude, but feeble limbs are required to guide their path along the deep. It is also supposed that their sense is imperfect-the sense of touch cannot be perfect in an animal clad in an armor of scales. Can taste exist? If so, how blunted in an animal feeding as they do. Floating in an element often dense and muddy, through which the light can scarcely dart a single ray, the power of sight is of necessity feeble. Dwellers in the realms of eternal silence; entombed in the unfathomable depths of the ocean where no sound can penetrate-the voice of the storm find no echo, the sense of hearing is but little needed. Yet they live, they enjoy life and suffer pain; they scull themselves along the stream, in vast migratory tribes from the bottom of the Arctic ocean, they hold on their way along the coasts of British Islands, NorThere are many mysteries buried in "thy sound way, Denmark, Sweden, until they gather in & ing halls, thou lord of Ocean" worth a fish's curiosity mighty convention on the coast of our virgin world. to unravel. Could any one of the finny dwellers in Electrical fishes present the most remarkable phehis watery home speak with "miraculous organ" nomenon, which nature in her wonderful divisions "Taught by that Power that pities me, and harmonies has observed. The largest and enduring the deep, Nature seems to have assisted most powerful of these live within the torrid zone. him in a very extraordinary manner, for the spaces The Mediterranean contains four species of elec- between his fingers and toes were webbed, as in a trical torpedoes, but the shocks which they com-goose; and his chest became so very capacious, municate cannot be compared in violence to those that he could take in at one inspiration as much of the Gymnoti, which inhabit the rivers and stag-breath as would endure a whole day. nant pools of South America. It is related that "An account of so extraordinary a person did not some years ago it became necessary to change the fail to reach the King himself; who, actuated by direction of a road from Urituca, in consequence of the general curiosity, ordered that Nicholas should the mules of burden lost in fording a river in which be brought before him. It was no easy matter to large quantities of these creatures were found. find him, for his time was mostly spent in the boThe temperature of the water in which they ha- som of the deep, but at last, after much searching, bitually live, is from 78° to 80°; their electric force he was found. The King ordered a golden cup to is said to diminish in proportion to the decrease in be thrown into the gulf of Charybdis; conceiving the heat of the water. The Torpedo is regarded it would be a proper opportunity to test his powers. as an animal formidable and dangerous, but the The diver, though not insensible to the danger of manner of its operating is to this hour a mystery. the whirlpool, remonstrated at first, but actuated To all appearance, it is furnished with no powers; with the hopes of the reward and a desire to please it has no muscles formed for particular exertions, the King, jumped into the gulf and was swallowed that perceptibly differ from the rest of its kind; up. He continued three quarters of an hour beyet such is the unaccountable power it possesses, low and at last appeared holding the cup in one that the instant it is touched, it benumbs not only hand and buffetting the waves with the other. When the hand and arm, but the whole body. Handling requested to give an account of his voyage, he desays Kempfer, is accompanied with an univer- scribed the dangers as far greater than he anticipasel tremor, a sickness of the stomach, and a total ted. The water bursting up from the gulf made it suspension of the faculties of the mind. dreadful even for the fishes. The abruptness of the rocks on every side threatened destruction, and the force of the whirlpool dashing against those rocks made it appalling. The account, however, did not satisfy the King; he was induced to repeat his voyage, to make farther discoveries, and was never seen more." it, Goldsmith, in his "Animated Nature," in speaking of divers who have explored the depths of the ocean, relates the following wonderful circumstanees. "Of all those divers," he says, "who have brought us information from the bottom of the deep, the famous Nicola Pesce, whose performances are told us by Kircher, is the most celebrated." Kirch- How much there is in the " vasty deep" yet to er's account purports to have been taken from the be explored and set forth; of the manners, customs, archives of the Kings of Sicily. True or false, habits, affinities of the mighty family, of which we it may serve to lighten the mind and amuse the at present know nothing, except their mere classireader. "In the times of Frederick, King of Si-fication. An Audubon of Icthyology may yet apcily, there lived a celebrated diver, whose name was pear, in whose suggestion and illustration we may Nicholas, and who for his amazing skill in swim-recognize the same presiding power manifested in ming, and his perseverance under water, was sur-the great artist's work on the choired minstrels of named the Fish. This man had, from his infancy, the air. The beauty and harmony of the wonders been used to the sea; and earned his scanty sub- of the deep, are clothed in hues and forms which sistence by diving for corals and oysters, which he the human imagination can scarcely grasp, and it sold to the villagers on shore. His long acquaint- is not unnatural to presume that some poet of the ance with the sea, brought it to be at last al- seas may yet solemnize and adorn her multiplied most his natural element. He frequently was perfections. Nature, or the God of Nature, is forknown to spend five days in the midst of the waves, ever unfolding her simple round of action and mainwithout any food, but the fish which he caught there taining her relative importance in every link; the and ate raw. He often swam over from Sicily to congruity of every part flows from the harmony of Calabria, a tempestuous and dangerous passage, the whole. Diffused through every organ of the livcarrying letters from the King. Some mariners out ing fabric of life and nature, an informing soul as at sea, one day observed something at some dis- the chief elementary principle runs, guiding us tance from land, which proved to be Nicholas; he through the varied degrees of endless inquiry from showed them a packet of letters which he was car-earth to heaven, from sea to sky, from dust to rying to one of the towns of Italy, exactly done Deity. up in a leather bag. They took him into their ship, and he kept them company some time on their voyage, conversing and asking questions; and after eating a hearty meal, jumped into the sea and pur. sued his voyage. In order to aid these powers of VOL. XIV-30 Penitus prorsum latet haec natura, subestque: Nec magis hac infra quid quam est in corpore nostro ; SONNET.-VIRGINIA. Thee, thee alone in every thing I seek. The rose is but the bloom upon thy cheek; And sunbeams feign thy bright hair's golden shower, Virginia, 1848. C. C. L. BULWER, BULWER'S LUCRETIA, AND SOME STRANGE PHENOMENA OF THE MARCH |constitution to the surgeon who took delight in the deformities and bodily sufferings of his patients: who could gloat over the wounds and mangled limbs of those who required his art, because the study of such sad misfortunes was essential to the knowledge and practice of his profession? Shall we, then, take delight in brooding over the mental and moral maladies of others? Surely not: To meditate upon the frailties of man-to unwind the labyrinthine mazes of self-deception with which he beguiles himself into the commission of crime-to trace the growth of intellectual depravity from the first feeble germination of the seeds of evil till they have sprung up into poisonous and deadly maturity-these are no sources of gratification to the taste, which has not yet been utterly perverted by habitually feeding on garbage. We cannot wan der through the charnel house without being chilled by its noxious vapors and oppressed by the stifling odors of death-nor look upon the festering plaguespots and loathsome diseases of the lazaretto without sickening at the repulsive sight. But a still deeper horror awaits the heart rightly trained and the mind conscious of the tremendous responsibili ties entailed upon the exercise of the intellectual faculties, when we are compelled to scrutinize and probe the sores, and ulcers of mental or moral corruption. Shall we seek enjoyment in the atmosphere tainted by the breath of the pestilence, or look for bliss amid the heaps of the dead and the dying? If our nature revolts at such things, can we anticipate gratification from poring over moral diseases? It is with no feeling of elation that we are about to enter upon such a task, and occupy ourselves for a while with pointing out new forms of moral contagion. With repugnance we undertake to expose the dangerous tendency of Bulwer's Lucretia, and unravel the tangled web of infamy which its author has woven. It is too late to attempt a methodical review of the novel, but it is not too late to unveil the pernicious influences Such, in the lofty poetry of Lucretius, was the which may be anticipated from this and similar language of that selfish and blighting philosophy, works. It is necessary to do so, even at this day, of which he was the most profound and eloquent for no one has yet spoken out fully, boldly, and interpreter. But to those whose views of human freely, in deprecation of this new assault upon the life and human destiny are built upon broader and fundamental principles of virtue. We do not denobler foundations, no spectacle can be fraught with sign a formal review of the work, but we are dedeeper melancholy than the contemplation of the termined to record our feeble protest against the dangers, the follies, and the vices of men. It is a Protean forms of literary demoralization with which gloomy picture, which it may be our duty carefully the world is now threatened. The Literature of to study; but the precious instruction thus derived an age should endeavor to remove the prejudices cannot teach us to regard human aberrations with and purify the feelings of the people to whom it is any feeling of pleasure. Such selfish and pre-addressed :—wretched, indeed, is the condition of sumptuous complacency always indicates corrup- the time, when that, which should be the safetion within: it is only Mephistophiles who can jest and jeer over the weaknesses and iniquities of mankind. Could we attribute a healthy, moral Suave mari magno, turbantibus æquora ventis, guard, becomes the channel of pollution. "If the salt have lost its savor, wherewithal shall it be salted?"--if the water of purification become putrid by what means shall the uncleanness be washed * Lucretia, or the Children of Night. By Sir E. Bul- away? Some resistance must be offered to the torwer Lytton. New York, 1847. rent of corruption which is sweeping over our lite |