or may even be much greater-of the soldier or sailor who dies of a fever in a distant land-his story untold, and his sufferings unseen. In warring against climates unsuited to his frame, he may have encountered, in the public service, enemies often more formidable than those who handle pike and gun. There should be nothing left undone, therefore, at such a time, to show not only to the dying man, but to his shipmates and his family at home, that his services are appreciated. I remember, on one occasion, hearing the captain of a ship say to a poor fellow who was almost gone, that he was glad to see him so cheerful at such a moment; and begged to know if he had anything to say. "I hope, Sir," said the expiring seaman with a smile, " I have done my duty to your satisfaction?" "That you have, my lad," said his commander, "and to the satisfaction of your country, too." "That is all I wanted to know, Sir," replied the man. These few commonplace words cost the captain not five minutes of his time, but were long recollected with gratitude by the people under his orders, and contributed, along with many other graceful acts of considerate attention, to fix his authority.

• If a sailor who knows he is dying, has a captain who pleases him, he is very likely to send a message by the surgeon to beg a visit-not often to trouble his commander with any commission, but merely to say something at parting. No officer, of course, would ever refuse to grant such an interview, but it appears to me it should always be volunteered; for many men may wish it, whose habitual respect would disincline them to take such a liberty, even at the moment when all distinctions are about to cease.

Very shortly after poor Jack dies, he is prepared for his deep-sea grave by his messmates, who, with the assistance of the sailmaker, and in the presence of the master-at-arms, sew him up in his hammock, and, having placed a couple of cannon-shot at his feet, they rest the body (which now not a little resembles an Egyptian mummy) on a spare grating. Some portion of the bedding and clothes are always made up in the package-apparently to prevent the form being too much seen. It is then carried aft, and, being placed across the afterhatchway, the union jack is thrown over all. Sometimes it is placed between two of the guns, under the half deck; but generally, I think, he is laid where I have mentioned, just abaft the mainmast. should have mentioned before, that as soon as the surgeon's ineffectual professional offices are at end, he walks to the quarter-deck, and reports to the officer of the watch that one of his patients has just expired. At whatever hour of the day or night this occurs, the captain is immediately made acquainted with the circumstance.

I

Next day, generally about eleven o'clock, the bell on which the half-hours are struck, is tolled for the funeral, and all who choose to be present, assemble on the gangways, booms, and round the mainmast, while the forepart of the quarter-deck is occupied by the officers. In some ships-and it ought perhaps to be so in all—it is made imperative on the officers and crew to attend the ceremony. If such

attendance be a proper mark of respect to a professional brother—as it surely is-it ought to be enforced, and not left to caprice. There may, indeed, be times of great fatigue, when it would harass men and officers, needlessly, to oblige them to come on deck for every funeral, and upon such occasions the watch on deck may be sufficient. Or, when some dire disease gets into a ship, and is cutting down her crew by its daily and nightly, or it may be hourly ravages, and when, two or three times in a watch, the ceremony must be repeated, those only, whose turn it is to be on deck, need be assembled. In such fearful times, the funeral is generally made to follow close upon the death.

While the people are repairing to the quarter-deck, in obedience to the summons of the bell, the grating on which the body is placed, being lifted from the main-deck by the messmates of the man who has died, is made to rest across the lee gangway. The stanchions for the man-ropes of the side are unshipped, and an opening made at the after-end of the hammock netting, sufficiently large to allow a free passage. The body is still covered by the flag already mentioned, with the feet projecting a little over the gunwale, while the messmates of the deceased range themselves on each side. A rope, which is kept out of sight in these arrangements, is then made fast to the grating, for a purpose which will be seen presently. When all is ready, the chaplain, if there be one on board, or, if not, the captain, or any of the officers he may direct to officiate, appears on the quarter-deck and commences the beautiful service, which, though but too familiar to most ears, I have observed, never fails to rivet the attention even of the rudest and least reflecting. Of course, the bell has ceased to toll, and every one stands in silence and uncovered as the prayers are read. Sailors, with all their looseness of habits, are well disposed to be sincerely religious; and when they have fair play given them, they will always, I believe, be found to stand on as good vantage ground, in this respect, as their fellow-countrymen on shore. Be this as it may, there can be no more attentive, or apparently reverent auditory, than assembles on the deck of a ship of war, on the occasion of a shipmate's burial.

The land service for the burial of the dead contains the following words:"Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God, of his great mercy, to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed, we therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope," &c. Every one, I am sure, who has attended the funeral of a friend—and whom will this not include ?—must recollect the solemnity of that stage of the ceremony, where, as the above words are pronounced, there are cast into the grave three successive portions of earth, which, falling on the coffin, send up a hollow, mournful sound, resembling no other that I know. In the burial service at sea, the part quoted above is varied in the following very striking and solemn manner:-" Forasmuch," &c.-" we therefore commit his body to the deep, to be turned into corruption, looking for the resurrection of the body, when the

sea

sea shall give up her dead, and the life of the world to come," &c. At the commencement of this part of the service, one of the seamen stoops down, and disengages the flag from the remains of his late shipmate, while the others, at the words "we commit his body to the deep," project the grating right into the sea. The body being loaded with shot at one end, glances off the grating, plunges at once into the ocean, and

"In a moment, like a drop of rain,

He sinks into its depths with bubbling groan,

Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown."

This part of the ceremony is rather less impressive than the correspondent part on land; but still there is something solemn, as well as startling, in the sudden splash, followed by the sound of the grating, as it is towed along under the main-chains.'

Here follows a paragraph which is perhaps more strikingly characteristic of the author than any other in his book. We give it without comment: if the reader cannot sympathize with it, there is nothing more to be said: a Wordsworth or a Wilson would have turned it into exquisite poetry.

In a fine day at sea, in smooth water, and when all the ship's company and officers are assembled, the ceremony just described, although a melancholy one, as it must always be, is often so pleasing, all things considered, that it is calculated to leave even cheerful impressions on the mind,'

Even Captain Hall, however, admits that a sea-funeral may sometimes be a scene of unmixed sadness; and he records the following as the most impressive of all the hundreds he has witnessed. It occurred in the Leander, off the coast of North America. There was a poor little middy on board, so delicate and fragile, that the sea was clearly no fit profession for him but he or his friends thought otherwise; and as he had a spirit for which his frame was no match, he soon gave token of decay. This boy was a great favourite with every body-the sailors smiled whenever he passed, as they would have done to a child-the officers petted him, and coddled him up with all sorts of good things-and his messmates, in a style which did not altogether please him, but which he could not well resist, as it was meant most kindly, nicknamed him Dolly. Poor fellow!-he was long remembered afterwards. I forget what his particular complaint was, but he gradually sunk; and at last went out just as a taper might have done, exposed to such gusts of wind as blew in that tempestuous region. He died in the morning; but it was not until the evening that he was prepared for a seaman's grave.

I remember, in the course of the day, going to the side of the boy's hammock, and on laying my hand upon his breast, was astonished to find it still warm-so much so, that I almost imagined I could feel the heart beat. This, of course, was a vain fancy; Lut I was much attached to my little companion, being then not much taller myself-and

I was soothed and gratified, in a childish way, by discovering that my friend, though many hours dead, had not yet acquired the usual revolting chillness.

no

In after years I have sometimes thought of this incident, when reflecting on the pleasing doctrine of the Spaniards-that as soon as children die, they are translated into angels, without any of those cold wan obstructions, which, they pretend, intercept and retard the souls of other mortals. The peculiar circumstances connected with the funeral which I am about to describe, and the fanciful superstitions of the sailors upon the occasion, have combined to fix the whole scene in my

memory.

Something occurred during the day to prevent the funeral taking place at the usual hour, and the ceremony was deferred till long after sunset. The evening was extremely dark, and it was blowing a treble-reefed topsail breeze. We had just sent down the top-gallant yards, and made all snug for a boisterous winter's night. As it became necessary to have lights to see what was done, several signal lanterns were placed on the break of the quarter-deck, and others along the hammock railings on the lee gangway. The whole ship's company and officers were assembled, some on the booms, others in the boats; while the main-rigging was crowded half way up to the cat-harpings. Overhead, the mainsail, illuminated as high as the yard by the lamps, was bulging forwards under the gale, which was rising every minute, and straining so violently at the main-sheet, that there was some doubt whether it might not be necessary to interrupt the funeral in order to take sail off the ship. The lower deck ports lay completely under water, and several times the muzzles of the maindeck guns were plunged into the sea; so that the end of the grating on which the remains of poor Dolly were laid, once or twice nearly touched the tops of the waves, as they foamed and hissed past. The rain fell fast on the bare heads of the crew, dropping also on the officers, during all the ceremony, from the foot of the mainsail, and wetting the leaves of the prayer-book. The wind sighed over us amongst the wet shrouds, with a note so mournful, that there could not have been a more appropriate dirge.

The ship-pitching violently-strained and creaked from end to end so that, what with the noise of the sea, the rattling of the ropes, and the whistling of the wind, hardly one word of the service could be distinguished. The men, however, understood, by a motion of the captain's hand, when the time came-and the body of our dear little brother was committed to the deep.

So violent a squall was sweeping past the ship at this moment, that no sound was heard of the usual splash, which made the sailors allege that their young favourite never touched the water at all, but was at once carried off in the gale to his final resting-place!'

Naval and military authors have of late years increased and multiplied in a style that must make Malthusian critics shake in their slippers; but we, being of the old breed, are at no loss to

discover

discover that the usual compensatory process has been equally at work, and hail, with sincere satisfaction, the appearance of a monthly journal expressly devoted to this rising literature of the United Service, and conducted (if we may presume, as elder brothers, to say a word on such a subject) in a style that does honour to all concerned; with varied, not seldom with powerful talent, and uniformly, as far as we have observed, in a high, gallant, loyal, old English spirit. To such hands we may safely leave the many questions of professional controversy touched on in these volumes; and consider our conscience, as to the 'general reader,' sufficiently cleared, when we assure him that throughout he will find them lively and diverting-that many detached passages of extraordinary beauty, as well as interest, will 'pull him up' in the course of the perusal-and that, though we do not pretend to know why Captain Hall talks of his book as intended chiefly for young persons, it contains assuredly nothing that can do little people harm, and a great deal that is likely to do them good.

It records, after all, only a small portion of the author's professional career; and if we have been so well amused and edified with his sketches of nautical life between twelve and twenty, we may safely expect still better from the sequel of the story. The Mediterranean, the French coast, and this sharp observer's travels in Hindostan, and on the continent of Europe, are yet untouched; and we are glad he is to bring mature optics to such scenes. Certain novelists seem to consider it as a ruled point that no very exquisite interest can attach to human beings after they have passed the bloom of youth; but the readers of autobiography, and above all of nautobiography, must beg leave to dissent from this conclusion, however flattering to damsels of seventeen, and heroes who have not yet worn out their first razors.

ART. V.-1. Conspiration pour l'Egalité, dite de Babeuf; suivie du Procès auquel elle donna lieu, et des Pièces justificatives, &c. Par Philippo Buonarroti. 2 vols. Bruxelles. 1828.

2. Haute Cour de Justice. Copie des Pièces saisies dans le Local qui Babeuf occupoit lors de son Arrestation. 2 vols. à Paris. De l'Imprimerie Nationale. Nivôse, an V.

WELL

TELL timed as the work of Philippo Buonarroti is, it may be considered not only as the most curious one which has appeared concerning the French revolution, but as the most important also.

The author was born at Florence, in the year 1760 and it

has