palette, and the fame even sweeter than fortune,
had flitted before me like a mocking will-o'-the-
wisp. I was actually poorer than when I arrived,
two years before, at New York. Of my own
proficiency as an artist, it behoves me to speak
modestly. My studies had been long and sincere,
and critics of some celebrity had predicted my
future success. My true course was to have
stayed at home, to have stuck to my art steadily,
and, by patient work and thought, to have
attained, not to a pinnacle of renown, but to a
reasonable share of public favour.

I did not do this. I preferred to grow rich
and famous at a bound, and I emigrated to
America in a flush of hope. I could not have
done a sillier thing. The New World is very
chary of yielding patronage to any foreign talent
that has not been heralded by the trumpetnote
of foreign praise. The United States
combine to do honour to the artist, actor, or singer,
who can boast a great name in Europe, but the
unknown are sure to be looked coldly upon. So
it fared with me. And this was why, after
setting up as a portrait painter in Philadelphia, as
a historical painter in Boston, as a painter of
allegory in Cincinnati, I was finally reduced to
solicit the post of lighthouse-keeper in a
wretched sandy islet off the coast of North
Carolina.

I had one especial reason for asking and
accepting this unpromising berth: a reason with
which I did not trouble the clerk, and which
I had not even imparted to the secretary. If I
had any peculiar inclination, it was towards the
painting of sea-views and ships; but as yet I
had been dissatisfied with the result of my
efforts. The colour was so poor—in my eyes
at least—and the treatment so conventional.
I had often longed for a favourable opportunity
of sitting down before the ocean, studying
every wrinkle and line in Neptune's stormy
face, and taking the portrait of the sea in
every mood from calm to frenzy. Here was a
capital chance. The keeper of a lighthouse
would be alone with Nature; no billiards, no
gossip, nothing to call off his attention; and,
perhaps after a summer's study, I might contrive
to produce something that would sell well in
London. Longer than half a year or so, I
never dreamed of retaining the employment.
Indeed it is not customary in the States to stick
very long to one avocation, or to one office.
Americans commonly regard one preferment as
a stepping-stone to something very different,
and I, in my turn, hoped to save enough and
learn enough to enable me to withdraw to
England again, with a fair prospect of success.

One fortnight afterwards, I hired a boat, and
was duly wafted across to my new residence.
It had been settled that I was to receive rations,
at regular intervals. Two barrels of pickled-
pork, with a cask of flour, some bags of biscuit
and corn, a keg of whisky and some groceries,
were on board the boat. With me went, also,
a sturdy black lad whose goggle eyes rolled in
wonder at the unaccustomed sight he beheld,
and a hale old negress, the grandmother of the
boy, a woman with an excellent character for
cooking and scouring. These coloured persons
were slaves. White servants are luxuries
undreamed of in the labour-despising South, and
I had conformed to the prevailing custom in
hiring the living chattels of a landowner in the
neighbourhood of Wilmington. I had been
recommended to this gentleman, Dr. Leonidas
Wicks, by a friend who knew that the doctor
owned several negroes whose work on the land,
or in the house, could be easily dispensed with.
An Englishman never feels his conscience more
troublesome than when he meddles with the
"domestic institution" of the Slave States, even
in the indirect method of hiring " animated
property" from its possessor. Very likely Dr.
Wicks read some such feeling in my countenance,
for he said abruptly, before our bargain
was concluded. " You've no call, Mr. Britisher,
to be so plaguy nice! I expect Aunt Polly and
young Juba had sooner go along with you to
the lighthouse, than be sold to go South. It's
a 'nation deal pleasanter work to cook meals
and shake blankets, than hoe rice and sugar-
grounds, down in Georgia or South Carolina,
and it's there I'd have been obliged to send that
pair of woolly heads, if you hadn't happened in
to hire 'em." My scruples were thus removed,
and I found Aunt Polly a good cook, and Juba
a well-disposed lad, though neither was
industrious nor quick of comprehension.

There was a light breeze, and, as the boat's
sails filled pleasantly, we flew along at a great
rate through the little sparkling waves. The
whole bay, fenced in from angry gales and
Atlantic rollers by the natural breakwater of the
sandy islands, reminded me of the lagoons of
Venice, and the blazing blue sky overhead was
thoroughly Italian. It was amusing to hear the
voluble talk and loud exclamations of my sable
attendants, who had never before had more than
a distant peep at the sea, and to whom
everything was an object of wonder.

"Hoo! what sort ob grass dat?" cried Juba,
for instance, when a great heap of tangled
seaweed—red, brown, and purple, and full of shells
and small crabs—floated by.

"Him not grass. Him flower, tupidhead!"
returned Aunt Polly, with all the complacency
of superior wisdom.

Presently we got to the little quay, whose
slimy and weather-beaten piles were deeply
imbedded in the sand, and above which rose the
gaunt white tower of the lighthouse. Some
former occupant of the latter had made a desperate
attempt at cultivation, and some traces of
a garden were still visible, though the very wall
had been more than half buried by the pure
white sand that had drifted before the wind.
The whole place was in tolerable repair, but had
a neglected and dismal appearance. Nor did
the interior of the building present a more cheerful
aspect. The walls were worm-eaten bulwarks
of timber, like the bulkheads of an old ship; the
low ceilings were scored all over with names
and dates, with illspelt scraps of songs and
frightful caricatures that had been sketched