after assisting so effectually in the general escape of the vessel and crew, was to find his career so speedily and cruelly extinguished.

As the story transpired, the general sympathy for the death of this gallant fellow reached even the hospodar, who now expressed the deepest regret for his rash violence, especially on its being known that the chief purpose of the Italian's coming on board was to tell him that the boats in pursuit were sent expressly to bring him back, dead or alive, to wait the gultan's pleasure. But all lamentations were now fruitless; and there was nothing to be done, but to make the best of our way, and fight or fly as we could.

The intelligence of the actual pursuit of the hospodar had completed my determination; and, taking the helm in my own hand, I steered right for the open sea. But, though we had left our pursuers some leagues behind, a shower of rockets, which fell directly ahead of the polacre, soon taught us that signals fly faster than sails. The gun from the fort had alarmed the shore, and the whole line of guard-boats were out in our front to bring us to. Another fit of terror now seized my Mediterranean heroes, and the ropes and carbines were equally dropped together. One or two black-browed knaves, with their hands on their knives, even attempted to get up a mutiny, and it was not till a handspike well applied to the os frontis of the foremost put an end to his oratory for a time, and a few peltings of the round shot that lay at my feet dispersed the rest, that I felt secure against being sent to feed the tunnies, for which the strait has been so renowned. This demonstration on my part ended with a solemn promise to blow up the vessel, smugglers and all, on the first disturbance among my rabble of poltroons. The people of the pilot-boat, too, were on my hands. For the 'Italian, as not one of themselves, they exhibited no extravagant sympathy; but they by no means wished to come into actual contact with the Turkish muskets. There was no time for parley. To a man they went over the side, wished me a lucky escape, and rowed shoreward. The situation was perplexing. But, when I walked towards the spot where the hospodar, now helpless as a child, according to the custom of oriental repentance, was sitting on the deck with his hands clasped over his brows, and the group round his fair charge were kneeling, praying, and weeping, in every form of anguish and fear, my wits began to clear a little, and I resolved to try the effect of a piece of that manoeuvring which I had learned in the Archipelago.

A swarm of the Turkish boats were now coming up close, yet in their usual clumsy manner of clustering together; but two or three were lying astern of the rest, and about as many more were taking a sweep, evidently to cut off my retreat. On being hailed by the foremost boat to lie-to, I answered that they had only to send an officer on board. This intelligence was received by the Turks with a shout of triumph, for naval victories are rare in their annals; but

in my bark the public feeling was directly the reverse. The knaves, whom no persuasion could have hitherto induced to pull a trigger, now bounced with all the angry heroism of Alexanders. I was declared to be the blackest of traitors, the basest of dastards, and openly charged with selling the ship, at a moment when every man in her was ready to resist to the last drop of his blood. Even the hospodar, roused by the near approach of his fate, and probably still more by the miseries to which his young beauty must be exposed, came hastily toward me, and asked, in a voice struggling with emotion, whether I could think of surrendering; and, bidding him draw his sword, and cut down the first man who flinched, called upon the Alexanders to stand by me, and fight, at least, till I bade them give in. I still held the helm in my hand. The enemy, a little lulled by the expectation of an easy victory, had laid by their oars, and were preparing to jump on board for a glorious harvest of robbery. They were mistaken, at least, for the time. A single turn of the helm brought the polacre into the very centre of the swarm. The shout was turned into a universal howl of terror. Successive crashes, followed by successive howls, told us that the prow was doing its work in good style; and a scattering of turbans on the water, and the phosphoric splash of hands striking out for the shore, satisfied me of the success of my stratagem, simple as it was. The cluster was broken, scattered, crushed, and swamped, in five minutes. The shout now was ours, and we bore on for the mouth of the strait with furious speed. Little harm, however, was done except to the boats, for the Turks swam like fishes, and they were within a few hundred yards of the shore.

But our night's work was not yet over. The boats in rear of the broken cluster were still to be passed; and here came the tug of war. The Turk, fighting in a fleet, is the most helpless of animals; but, fighting alone, is by no means to be despised. An unlucky shift of the wind, at this moment, threw our huge, unwieldy, latine sail aback; and, in the confusion, nothing could prevent the Turks from getting alongside. Of the crews of three, every man was, in the next minute, creeping up our unfortunate vessel, from stem to stern. Our situation began to be awkward. Muskets were out of the question, for, after the first shot or two, the whole affair was hand to hand. The confusion was horrible. Yet, after all, the darkness was perhaps in our favour; for we at least knew something of the ground, and our crew, who would undoubtedly have thrown down their arms at the first sight of an Osmanli in daylight, fell to, by the necessity of the case, and did their business very handsomely. The Turks at last gave way, and, between being tossed overboard and leaping overboard, they began to leave us a clear vessel. We should now have sung Io Pæan, and left our enemies far on the beam, but for the remnant of the squadron which we had already run down. The delay occasioned by the fight

enabled them to come up, and we found ourselves unexpectedly boarded by a fresh crowd of ruffians. Our resistance on this emergency sorely stripped us of our laurels. Three-fourths of our warriors instantly ran down into the cabin or tumbled into the hold. The hospodar, with two or three Albanians alone, retreated to the quarterdeck, where he defended himself desperately. As to remain by the helm was useless, I made my way to him there, luckily found an arm-chest, and, by firing, kept off the enemy for a while. But they seemed to be receiving a continual increase to their numbers, and at length they made a general rush, and completely closed us in. A blow on the head brought down the hospodar, while a shot through my arm disabled me for anything but a looker-on. The appearance of affairs was gloomy. I thought that the time for blowing-up was come, if I could but be suffered to creep down to the magazine; and away I went.

But, while I was in the act of stretching away on my hands and feet for the purpose, I heard a wild cry among the crowd of Turks, and felt them scattering and tumbling round me in all directions. Lanterns were now run up to the rigging by a new set of comers, and half a dozen stout fellows were soon hewing their way toward the stern. The Turks, taken by surprise, fell like straws, and the fight was done almost as soon as it had commenced. I now thought no more of the magazine, and made my way back, to see what was become of the hospodar.

The whole scene was like a theatrical finale. There knelt the Italian, with the hospodar's hand on his head, and the arm of the Star of the Harem round his neck. There was no time for etiquette; all was nature. The young officer, when thrown overboard, had swam to the shore, had collected some Genoese, and come up just in time. We certainly owed him our lives; and the hospodar, especially, would have been headless in the court of the seraglio within twenty-four hours but for his following us. We were, of course, all gratitude. Even the Jew pedlars voted him a contribution, and Captain Callistrato, creeping out from his rat-hole in the hold, produced his best anker of brandy as a propitiation. The deck was cleared. We dashed into the Euxine. All were happy, Jews, smugglers, and Smyrniotes. The fair girl and her hero were the happiest of all; and, three days after, I saw them marching, the handsomest pair in the Russian dominions, to the foot of the high altar at Odessa. The hospodar had now done with Turkey; the Italian had done with the sea; and the hands of the priest united, in my presence, two hearts which promised as glowingly for long delight as any that ever bound themselves in the golden links of a marriage for love.

THE MEDICAL KNOWLEDGE OF SHAKSPEARE.

I was not a little surprised at the reference of such eminent physicians as Sir Henry Halford, and the late Mr. Abernethy, to the pages of Shakspeare, for an elucidation or proof of some of the peculiar symptoms of particular diseases; but that surprise excited a curiosity anxious to be gratified, in a re-perusal or cursory survey of my favourite author-chiefly, but not solely, to be farther satisfied on this subject. This article is partly the result of that research, written with the hope of exciting a kindred feeling in the breasts of others having more curiosity and leisure than I to pursue such matters; and of evidencing that experience is preferable to mere theory in all indispositions affecting constitutional habits-in physiology and philosophy.

The reference of Halford was to a symptom of insanity, as given by Hamlet in the closet-scene with his mother:

"Ecstasy!

My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time,
And make as healthful music. 'Tis not madness
That I have uttered. Bring me to the test,
And I the matter will reword-which madness

Would gambol from."

Sir Henry related (before the Royal College of Physicians) that he and Sir J. Tuthill had been in attendance on a gentleman in a state of mental derangement; yet who appeared to have his symptoms so alleviated, as to be permitted to make his will, both physicians being witnesses. But on departing after, the medical gentlemen conversed on the circumstance, particularly on the impropriety or singularity of their being witnesses to the will of such a patient, when Sir Henry proposed the test of Shakspeare, whether he would reword the will: but the patient gambolled from the matter.

The reference of Abernethy was to the description of the febrile paroxysm of an intermittent, as given by Cassius of Cæsar :—

"He had a fever when he was in Spain;
And when the fit was on him, I did mark
How he did shake-'tis true this god did shake;
His coward lips did from their colour fly,

And that same eye whose bend doth awe the world,
Did lose its lustre. I did hear him groan;

Ay, and that tongue of his which bade the Romans
Mark him, and write his speech in their books,

'Alas,' it cried,' give me some drink, Titinius.""

Such reference is creditable to all parties; although Abernethy, as a surgeon, might have known how Shakspeare makes one say quizzically of the “tent,”

bring in "the surgeon's box or the patient's wound," and Halford, as a physician, might recollect

"Throw physic to the dogs;
I'll none of it;"

and again, in an almost vituperative strain

"Trust not the physician,

He kills more than you rob."

But Shakspeare must not be made responsible, in propria persone, for what his dramatic characters may say from circumstances; and perhaps he may really have concluded, with the son of Sirach," give place to the physician, for he was sent from God."

Shakspeare was not so devoid of learning as is commonly or customarily supposed; and although he may not have received a classical education, he may have acquired a classical and scientific knowledge. Nay, he did acquire, and was so perfectly conscious of his own attainments, and of his claims to literary immortality, that he glances more than obliquely at them in some of his sonnets. He was convinced that no man ever attained excellence without gifts, sedulously cultivated; nor literary success without laborious study: his writings are therefore the result, not of natural endowments enthusiastically exerted, but of personal experience improved or matured by the judgment resulting from the testimony of others, read as well as heard; but this is not now my theme.

He who would excel in one branch of science, art, or of literature, must have a more or less intimacy with its correlative dependencies. Shakspeare may not have walked the hospital, although he trod scrutinising in the ways of life. He may not immediately have made physic or surgery, pharmacy or physiology, his peculiar study; yet must he have acquired a knowledge of the thousand ills which flesh is heir to, from other sources than personal experience. Hence it was that he was enabled" to hold as 'twere the mirror up to nature ;" and hence

"Each trait of many coloured life he drew;
Exhausted worlds, and then imagined new.”

Shakspeare appears to have been so fastidiously accurate, as to remark the difference between the acceptation of disease and distemper--the former, a fatal illness; the latter, a temporary indisposition.

Again

"Little faults proceeding on distemper.-Hen. 5.
'Tis but a body yet distemper'd.”—Hen. 4.

"We're all diseased;

And with our surfeiting and wanton hours,
Have brought ourselves into a burning fever."