ad libitum Nevisiensium in the custody of our Lord the King in his aforesaid jail, these villains must be let loose again. It is said by speculatists, that perpetual imprisonment is a severer punishment than loss of life: if so, it may be a reasonable question, whether one year's putrefying in the prison of Charlestown be not equivalent to captivity for life in any of the Bridewells of the great Grand Duke.

The mean temperature of Nevis and Montserrat is certainly lower than in any other of the Antilles. If a man would bring his resources with him, especially a wife, he might live in a delightful retirement in many of the sweet hill recesses of either of these islands. I should prefer Madeira indeed for a residence on account of its vicinity to England, and also because I have partly engaged to marry a lady there when we are both come to years of discretion, which all my friends declare to be equivalent to the Greek kalends with me; but I should often run down the trades, and spend the winter within the tropics. Not, however, that I would prejudice the twice venerable Temples twain by any outlandish comparisons; no!

Fortunati nimium, sua si bona norint

Causidici !

and yet the law is a bore to a man of poetical

imagination, which is odd enough, considering how it dealeth in the most novel and surprizing fictions in the world. Mathematics are a bore of course, because Fancy starves at the surfeit of Reason; but why she should starve in law, where Heaven truly knows that Reason, poor soul, is often fain to look big upon a mighty scurvy dinner, is past my comprehension. But, no doubt, I have much to learn, and so we will say no more about the matter. For it is wisely remarked by the profound Lazarillo, "that to understand to perfection the meanest art or science requires the greatest capacity and skill. If you bid a shoemaker, who has been thirty years in the trade, make a pair of shoes with broad toes, high in the instep and tight about the heels, he must pare your feet before he fits you; or ask a philosopher why flies' dung is black upon a white place and white upon a black one, he will blush you like a maiden on her wedding night, and answer nothing to the purpose!”

And I defy the Royal Society to give a decent explanation of that mystery at the present day.

N. B. John Davies writes thus;-"This Island is the best governed of any in the Caribbies. Justice is there administered with great prudence by a council consisting of the most eminent and most ancient inhabitants of the colony: swearing, thieving,

drunkenness,

and all dissolutions and dis

orders are severely punished. In the year 1649

Mr. Lake, a knowing person and fearing God, had the government of it. He is since departed this life."

ST. CHRISTOPHER'S *.

WE set sail from Nevis at three p. m. of the 28th, and ran down to our anchoring place before Basseterre at eleven knots under a heavy squall. We did not land till the next morning, and I spent the hour before sunset in looking from the ship upon the beautiful island before us. The vale of Basseterre in softness, richness and perfection of cultivation surpasses any thing I have ever seen in my life.

life. Green velvet is an inadequate image of the exquisite verdancy of the cane fields which lie along this lovely valley and cover the smooth acclivities of Monkey Hill. This hill is the southern termination of a range of great mountains which increase in height towards the north, and thicken

* The French part of this island was purchased by De Poincy in 1651 from the French West India Company for the benefit of the knights of St. John of Malta, and in 1653 the king of France by letters patent made an absolute gift of all the French islands in the vicinity to the Order, reserving the sovereignty and a crown of gold, of the value of a thousand crowns, to be presented on every change of king.

together in enormous masses in the centre of the island. The apex of this rude pyramid is the awful crag of Mount Misery*, which shoots slantingly forwards over the mouth of a volcanic chasm like a huge peninsula in the air. It is bare and black and generally visible, whilst the under parts of the mountain are enveloped in clouds. The height is more than 3,700 feet, and is the most tremendous precipice I ever beheld. But the ruggedness of this central cluster only renders the contrast of the cultivated lands below more striking, and the entire prospect is so charming, that I could not help agreeing with the captain's clerk who said he wondered that Colon, who was so delighted with this island as to give to it his own name, should not have made a full stop upon its shores. I do not uphold the pun, but upon the whole it was well enough for a hot climate and a captain's clerk.

Basseterre is a large town, with many good houses in it, and one spacious square, which, with

* "He (Columbus) was engaged to give it (St. Christopher's) this name from a consideration of the figure of its mountains, the island having on its upper part, as it were upon one of its shoulders, another lesser mountain, as St. Christopher is painted like a gyant, carrying our Saviour upon his, as it were a little child."