long lost at the time the straight back of a
quadruped which we all commence life with,
may it please your lordship, and enjoyed the
curvature essential to the equilibrium of
rectitude, which comes when we are about
two or three years of age. Many mornings
of admiring contemplation, I remember,
preceded the memorable morning when, with a
proud feeling of ingenuity and daring, I
placed a chair before the drawers, and
climbed up and handled the ship. I suspect
I became afraid to come down again, and by
screaming for assistance got help and reproof;
but as there is nothing flattering to my
vanity in this part of the incident, I beg to
say I do not vouch for the exactitude of it.
During all my infancy and boyhood, I heard
little else talked about except boats and
ships, fishings and voyages, harbours and
storms. The youth of sea-port towns are
early taught the worship of enterprise and
adventure. Long before I knew what kings
and queens were, my imagination was full of
brilliant images of smugglers, privateers, and
pirates as cruel demons of the ocean, and my
soul was penetrated with admiration of skilful
shipbuilders, cool-minded captains, courageous
sailors, and adventurous navigators. As for
poor George the Third, he was completely
hidden and eclipsed from me by the glare of
the flames of the tar-barrels burned upon
every fourth of June; and the existence of
George the Fourth was first revealed with
force and distinctness to me by the illuminations
for the acquittal of Queen Caroline.
Old people belonging to a generation
preceding my parents, never spoke of Napoleon
Bonaparte without horror and scorn, and in
the queer peculiarities of their moral notions
and seaside eccentricities, taught me to
reverence the discoverer of the mariner's compass,
and the inventor of the methods in use for
preserving herrings as food.

No doubt the kilted heroes of the bayonet
who returned from occupying France after
Waterloo, were surrounded with a noble
lustre in the eyes of the boys who witnessed
their entries into their native towns. But
grey authorities insisted they ought not to be
placed above the brave men who distinguished
themselves in voyages to the regions
of tremendous ice or tremendous heat. It is
astonishing what an air of dignity and
romance was thrown around science and
art, sufferings and adventures, of the fishings
for cod, ling, haddocks, salmon, herrings, and
whales. Heroic as the Saint George who
killed the dragon, appeared to me a brave
and cool harpooner, who had triumphed over
vast mountains of ice jamming in his ship,
and over immense sea-monsters, sometimes
smashing his boats with a blow, and sometimes
running out, in league-long chases, a
thousand fathoms of line. Indeed, in seaside
places, sea-heroes who had served their
generation and country by contending against
storms and against war-ships; navigators who
had discovered unknown islands, and
inventors who had tamed the elements; were
the great men whose "foot-prints upon the
sands of time" were pointed out to stimulate
and encourage youth by the venerable
persons of a by-gone generation.

When any of my country cousins used to
come upon a visit to my family, after a first
glance of amazement at the sea and its ships,
and the shore and its wonders, the first
objects of their curiosity, and subjects of their
questions, were the customs and manners of
seaside folks. This was natural enough, for
coast folks differ much from country folks.

The calculation is too difficult to be
dogmatic about, but perhaps I may be allowed
to guess that the majority of mankind who
have lived, have never seen the sea, and the
majority of mankind now alive have never
seen it. This probability seems all the more
curious when we reflect that the land makes
only one-fourth, while the sea covers the
remaining three-fourths of the surface of the
globe. Persons who had never seen the sea
used to be numerous in London, and they
still abound in Paris. However, the stage-
coaches did much, and the railways are doing
more to diminish their numbers.

An intelligent lady, a native of Paris, well
acquainted with the French, English, and
Spanish literature, once said to me, "I have
never seen the sea, and cannot form the least
idea of what like it is." This is just the
chorus of all persons in her predicament, "I
cannot form the least idea of what like it is."
When they have appealed to me to help them
in trying to form an idea of the ocean, I have
felt compelled, after reflecting a little, to
answer by advising them to take the railway,
and go and see it. After so many masters of
description have tried it, I thought I had
best let it alone.

A lady, on seeing the sea at Brighton for
the first time, exclaimed, "What a beautiful
field!" She had never seen such a beautiful
green, moving, sparkling, grassy prairie.
Mr. Leigh Hunt lavished a page of admiration
in the Liberal upon a line of Ariosto's
describing the waves as

     Neptune's white herds lowing o'er the deep.

Anacreon exclaims in language appropriate
to calm seas and smooth sand-beaches, "How
the waves of the sea kiss the shore!" Saint
Lambert, in his Saisons, has four lines
descriptive of the waves of a stormy sea dashing
upon the beach, which have been much
admired by writers upon imitative harmony.
"Neptune has raised up his turbulent plains,
the sea falls and leaps upon the trembling
shores. She remounts, groans, and with
redoubled blows makes the abyss and the
shaken mountains resound:"

Neptune a soulevé les plaines turbulentes:
La mer tombe et bondit sur ses rives tremblantes;
Elle remonte, gronde, et ses coups redoublés
Font retentir I'abîme et les monts ebranlés.