compound of poisonous drugs and impurely
obtained alcohol; and all our beautiful
Anacreontics are merely fables like the rest,
for wine hath died out from the world, and
the laboratory is now the vineyard.

LITTLE CONSTANCY'S BIRTHDAY.

I LOOK back to a time, some five-and-
twenty years ago, when there came great
storms and tempests—the most terrible
that old people then alive recollected. I
think how, for weeks together, it blew great
guns in the Channel—how with every mail
came news of bursting dams, of rivers
swelling up suddenly, of great trees uprooted,
of houses blown down, and their timbers
found many fields away; of poor souls
overtaken by the waters, and never heard of
more: in short, of one cruel chapter of
misfortune. Captains from foreign countries,
making English ports with infinite risk and
hardship, brought tidings that off the Dutch
coast the people were up night and day, watching
their dykes, and that the great French
rivers had come down roaring from their
mountains, sweeping the whole country quite
clear. Many ships, homeward bound, and
within sight of land, went down miserably
with all hands, as the wreck chart of that
year can testify, the coast being littered for
many weeks with planks, shattered casks,
and staved seamen's chests. I think over
these things, and of the misery and wailing
they brought with them, and they grow
into a rough inclement background for this
one passage in my life.

It fell out unhappily that at this particular
season, of all seasons in the year, I
had to cross the seas; and of all seas in
the world, the great Bay of Biscay. A
failing house in Spain, long mismanagement,
with other reasons, at this date of little
moment, made it of absolute necessity that I
should set forth with all speed upon this
errand. Curiously enough, though there
were then signs and tokens of coming storms,
I did not so much mind going to sea for a
long voyage. But there was another reason
which would have made me buy off that
journey at any cost, had that been possible.
I had just been married—barely three weeks
before—to my own cousin, Constance; as
sweet a little dame as ever stood lightly
upon this earth. A brown-haired, bright-
eyed, blooming, and most bewitching little
dame. Little Constancy she was to me, by
which hangs a pretty history, of stern and
cruel relations, of secret engagement, of
journeying to the Indies and long absence,
of letters miscarrying, of her being wearily
importuned to give up this exile who had
now given her up, and choose from a band
of willing worshippers, all ardently
beseeching her. Which pretty history finishes
off with her holding out to the very last,
like a brave Little Constancy as she was;
and with the good ship Dear Delight,
having some one long-expected on board, being
signalled off the Downs—with joining of
hands and happy wind-up, and with many
more things besides, usually of small interest
to any, beyond the parties themselves.
This, however, was why she was called my
Little Constancy, and made it seem hard that
we should be so soon put asunder again.

It was of no use repining, for to stay, as I
have said, was only the next door to ruin.
So I made ready for the voyage with sham
spirits for poor Little Constancy's sake, finding
proper comfort in the well-worn saw
introduced on such occasions. And upon the
fourteenth day of December, at two in the
morning I went on board of that magnificent
fast-sailing line of packet ship, Albatross,
fifteen hundred tons burden, standing A 1 at
Lloyd's, and then lying off Gravesend.

As to the voyage out, and its incidents, I
will say nothing beyond this; that if the
sailing of that magnificent first-class line of
packet ship had been purposely delayed with
the view of meeting those great gales before
mentioned, it could not have been more nicely
contrived; for, within twenty hours after
losing sight of land, the waves began to swell,
and the wind to blow from the south. For
seven days and seven nights we lay in a
trough, as it were, enduring a weary round of
staving in of bulwarks, and washing of men
overboard; of lashing to the masts, and of
other miserable shipwreck incidents. I did
not dream, when taken in early youth to
hear a famous nautical performer chaunt,
"How we lay, on that day, in the Bay of
Biscay, O!" that I should myself come one
day to realise the horrors of that mariner's
situation. On the morning of the eighth day
we got sight of the Spanish coast, and within
six hours the magnificent fast-sailing line of
packet ship was towed in, an inglorious show,
with two masts cut away, and all hands at
the pumps to keep her from foundering.

As soon as I had gathered a little strength
after the hardships of the voyage, I turned
to righting the affairs of our house, which
were even in worse condition than they had
been described. There was a curious feebleness
over me, which I could not at all account
for; but I put my shoulder to the work, and
soon got things into shape; and then began
to think of setting out on my journey
home; but not by way of the ocean, as may
be well conceived. Of such rough travelling
I had had more than sufficient, and even then
no vessel durst put out to sea; therefore, I
made up my mind to take the road across
the mountains, down through the French
country, and in this manner get back to
home and Little Constancy. Therefore,
though I felt at times a sort of feverish ague
closing its fingers on me, together with a
heavy sickness about my heart, I was ready
by the third evening to set out. I travelled
all through that night, and the best portion