The Fata Morgana. "For feldom have fuch spirits power Fata Morgana.-There is a grandeur, a mystery and a terror connected with this potent enchantress, that distinguishes her from every other personage of the Fairy Family. Never was fhe feen by man, and the appearing of her spell-created palace, like the upriding thunder-cloud, was at once the herald and the inftrument of storm and death; fascinating the imagination of the spectator by its beauty, terrifying him by the evidences of its power. Many have feen and spoken and written of this palace islanded on the ocean midway between the Italian and Sicilian fhores, engirt with garden, and terrace, and tower; and every fucceeding fpectator has thought that it furpaffed all that had been faid or written in its praise. Like all other fairy beings Fata Morgana had no power over any but the wicked; the mariner whose foul was unstained with guilt, faw in her towers but a beacon to warn him back to the harbour from the coming ftorm. It was no small part of the dangers and anxieties of the coral fishers of the Mediterranean, that they were constantly liable to be attacked by the lawless Corfairs that infefted those waters-chiefly from the Barbary States. THE FATA MORGANA. "T WAS off the coast of Barbary — It seems as if but yesterday, And fifty years are past and gone ! 'Twas off the coaft of Barbary – My tale, I trow, is like our boat, A laggard getting under weigh When from this blue lagoon to float, But once upon the open fea, The free breeze piping in her fail, She skims the waters merrily So, meffmates, ye will find my tale. 'Twas off that cheerless coast we lay; The Captain cried, "Our toils are o'er, And we shall fee ere close of day |