over me, weather-stressing the frenzy of
passion. Thou, shouting—heaven-urging the
eternal hymns of love, that warbling rebound
on the heart. Ay! at thy feet I will sleep,
while thou, valiant one—Poet! Prince!
lightsomely grazing the clouds, evolvest your
harmonies rooted within my heart."

A little further on Bettina Brentano gives
it as her opinion, that " Beauty, by divine
spirit, inculcates itself to human features,
through which inspiration perspires a halo,
and, unhurt by lowness, its fragrance freely
evolves." Goëthe's personal beauty at forty
was " immarcessible," and at sixty was "re-
queened " by genius.

Some of the thoughts in the original are of
the highest order of fervent poetry; yet they
are much marred in English by the
comparative ignorance of their author of our
language. It would never do to apply to a
fair poetess who translates her own work
into a foreign language, the proverb which
defines what a client is who becomes his own
lawyer. In the case before us it would hardly
be just; for every allowance should be made
for the difficulties she had to overcome.

HOW WE WENT WHALING OFF
THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE.

AT Algoa Bay, in the eastern provinces of
the Cape Colony, there is, and has been for
thirty years, a whaling establishment. By
what instinct these monsters of the deep
ascertain the settlement of man on the shores
they frequent, it would be difficult to say.
But that they do so, and that they then
comparatively desert such coasts is undoubted.
Where one whale is now seen off the south-
eastern coast of Africa, twenty were seen in
former times, when the inhabitants of the
country were few. It is the same in New
Zealand, and every other whale-frequented
coast. Nevertheless, the whaling establishment
I have mentioned is still kept up in
Algoa Bay—and with good reason. One
whale per annum will pay all the expenses
and outgoings of its maintenance; every other
whale taken in the course of a year is a clear
profit.

The value of a whale depends, of course,
upon its size,—the average is from three
hundred pounds to six hundred pounds. The
establishment in Algoa Bay consists of a
stone-built house for the residence of the foreman,
with the coppers and boiling-houses
attached; a wooden boat-house, in which are
kept three whale-boats, with all the lines and
tackle belonging to them; and a set of
javelins, harpoons, and implements for cutting
up the whales' carcases. Then there are a
boat's crew of picked men, six in number,
besides the coxswain and the harpooner.
There are seldom above two or three whales
taken in the course of a year; occasionally
not one.

The appearance of a whale in the bay is
known immediately, and great is the excitement
caused thereby in the little town of
Port Elizabeth, close to which the whaling
establishment is situated. It is like a sudden
and unexpected gala, got up for the entertainment
of the inhabitants, with nothing to pay.

A treat of this sort is suddenly got up by
the first appearance of a whale in those parts.
Tackle-boats and men are got ready in a
twinkling. We jump into the stern-sheets of
the boat. Six weather-beaten, muscular tars
are at work at the oars, and there, in the bows,
stands the harpooner, preparing his tackle;
a boy is by his side. Coils of line lie at their
feet, with harpoons attached to them, and
two or three spears or javelins.

"Pull away, boys; there she blows again!"
cries the coxswain, and at each stroke the
strong men almost lift the little craft out of
the water. The harpooner says nothing; he
is a very silent fellow: but woe to the unlucky
whale that comes within the whirl of his
unerring harpoon!

Meantime, our fat friend of the ocean is
rolling himself about, as if such things as
harpoons never existed; as if he were an infidel
in javelins. We are approaching him, a
dozen more strokes and we shall be within
aim. Yet the harpooner seems cool and
unmoved as ever; he holds the harpoon it is
true, but he seems to grasp it no tighter, nor
to make any preparation for a strike. He
knows the whale better than we do—better
than his crew. He has been a harpooner for
thirty years, and once harpooned twenty-six
whales in one year with his own hand. He
was right not to hurry himself, you see, for
the whale has at last caught sight of us, and
has plunged below the surface.

Now, however, the harpooner makes an
imperceptible sign to the coxswain. The cox-
swain says " give way boys," scarcely above
his breath, and the boat skims faster than
ever over the waves. The harpooner's hand
clutches more tightly the harpoon, and he
slowly raises his arm; his mouth is compressed,
but his face is as calm as ever. A few yards
a-head of us a wave seems to swell above the
others—"Whiz"— at the very moment you
catch sight of the whale's back again above
the water, the harpoon is in it eighteen inches
deep, hurled by the unerring arm of the silent
harpooner.

The red blood of the monster gushes forth,
"incarnadining " (as Macbeth says) the waves.
"Back water," shouts the harpooner, as the
whale writhes with the pain, and flings his
huge body about with force enough to
submerge twenty of our little crafts at one blow.
But he has plunged down again below the
surface, and the pace at which he dives you
may judge of, by the wonderful rapidity with
which the line attached to the harpoon runs
over the bows of the boat. Now, too, you
see the use of the boy who is baling water
from the sea in a small bucket, and pouring