EXERCISE LII. THE BARNSTABLE BOY.-J. G. Palfrey. The duck does not take to the water with a surer instinct than the Barnstable boy. He leaps from his leading-strings into the shrouds. It is but a bound from the mother's lap to the mast-head. He boxes the compass in his infant soliloquies. He can hand, reef, and steer, by the time he flies a kite. The ambition of his youth is, to witch the world with noble seamanship;' and his manly 'march is on the mountainwave; his home, no, no; I am too fast, his home is not the deep; and, in his widest wanderings, he never forgets that it is not. His home stands on firm land, nestled among some light-houses, which, in the blackest midnight of a polar winter, his mind's eye sees, casting their serene radiance over the wide waters, to guide him back to the goal, as it was the starting-place, of life's varied voyage. While he keeps the long night-watches, under the Cross of the southern hemisphere, his spirit is travelling half around the globe to look in at the fireside, where, the household duties of the day gone through, the mother, or the sister, or the wife, or the dear friend that is not wife, but shall be, is musing on her absent sailor. The gales of Cape Horn, or the monsoons of the Indian sea, are piping in his cordage; but clearer, and through and above all their roar, his ear is drinking in the low, sweet voice, that is lulling here his infant's distant slumber. And, whether he eyes, with the conscious pride of art, the 'thing of life' he is managing, as, all tight and trim, her upper rigging sent down, she leaps, free and sure-footed, poised by a scant edge of maintopsail, from peak to peak of the now rising, now subsiding, watery Alps, while his hoarse voice, amid the mad uproar of the elements, guides her fierce way, as if by magic; or whether, on the quiet Sabbath, in the garish sunset, or beneath the broad enveloping moonlight, his beautiful vessel skims under the line, over the level floor of the ocean, with all her snowy toggery, (I should say her bravery,) set, as gentle and noiseless as a flock of white doves, still, still, loved spot of his nativity - 'Where'er he roams, whatever realms to see, The first sign, from which the neighbors gather that the lad has been prospering, is, that the old people's house puts on a new coat of shingles; and another cow, if there needs one, is seen cropping their pasture; his second lucky adventure makes his younger brothers and sisters happy, the next time they go abroad; not so much for the gayer figure it has enabled them to make, as because it betokens how kindly they were thought of by one so far away; and the third, — the third is very apt to serve as an occasion for whispering in some not reluctant ear, that it is almost time he had a snug home of his own, where he could be made more comfortable after these tedious voyages. EXERCISE LIII. THE SONG OF THE STROMKERL. *— Park Benjamin. Come, dance, elfins, dance! for my harp is in tune, Each lily that bends to the breast of my stream, My silken-winged bark shall career by the shore, And the notes ye have heard with such rapture before, The banks of my stream are enamelled with flowers; While clear falls the summer sky's curtain of blue! *The Swedes delight to tell of the Stromkerl, or boy of the stream, who haunts the glassy brooks that steal gently through green meadows, and sits on the silver waves at moonlight, playing on his harp to the elves who dance on the flowery margin. -W. Irving. Come, queen of the revels, -come, form into bands The elves and the fairies that follow your train; Tossing your tresses, and wreathing your hands, Let your dainty feet glance to my wave-wafted strain! EXERCISE LIV. ANTIQUITIES OF ST. AUGUSTINE. — Anon. St. Augustine is venerable for its antiquity, and interesting for its connection with the early history of our country. More than two centuries ago, the cavaliers of old Spain landed at this spot; and in honor of the patron saint, whose natal day it was, they gave the name St. Augustine to the city which they then founded. The site of the town is pleasant, and speaks well for the taste of those who selected it. It is situated on a noble bay, stretching along the shore, for the distance of a mile and a half; and the buildings fronting upon the water are protected from the incursions of the sea, by a very handsome and well-built sea-wall. The first thing that arrests your attention, as you enter the harbor from the sea, is the stern-looking fort, that seems so frowningly to guard the waters of the beautiful bay. The watch-towers, at the corners of the bastions, the crumbling batteries, the moat, overgrown with long grass, whole appearance of this storm-beaten old fortress, reminds you of other days, and of generations long since passed away. the You pass from the fort, along the moat, now partly filled up, but in which, formerly, the tide ebbed and flowed to the gates, the pillars of which are still standing, with the old sentry-boxes on either side. The moat extends from the ancient gate to the river St. Sebastian, fortified at regular intervals by bastions and pickets. The St. Sebastian protects its western side, for the distance of a mile; and you may still trace, along its shores, the remains of the picket and block-houses which formerly guarded it. The magazine, though somewhat modernized, is still standing in the southern part of the city, upon the extreme east of the fortified line. The narrow streets, which, it is said, were once completely paved with 'tabby,' and so cleanly kept, that the dust upon them did not soil the slipper of the Spanish maiden as she passed over them; the houses, with their balconies all light and pleasant above, but guarded below by ponderous .doors and heavy shutters, as though the worthy residents were afraid of night-brawlers or burglars, mark the antiquity of this city. Previous to the frost of 1838, the house of the poorest inhabitant was shaded by an orange-grove, at once a source of comfort and revenue. The severe winters, for two or three years past, and the insect which has proved so destructive to these beautiful trees, not only here but in the West Indies, have, in many instances, killed them, or left them shorn of foliage. There are many places of interest in the old town, hallowed by tradition and legend, which, whether they partake of the superstition of the olden time or not, invest them with a kind of charm which one would not willingly have destroyed. There are the ruins of the residence of the Spanish governors: imagination can find room there for her fancies. Över these floors, disfigured by many a rent, and roughened by the rude footsteps of horses and donkeys, the Spanish maiden once cycled in the graceful dance peculiar to her nation; the proud old governors held court here; and these crumbling walls were once adorned with tapestry, and lighted up by many a lamp that shone upon the gayety and loveliness collected within. The fort, old St. Mark's, as they call it, at once a depôt for government purposes, and a prison for the eastern part of the territory, is said to be a very good specimen of military architecture; and the government are now engaged in restoring the breaches which time has effected upon its structure. You enter its gloomy portal, over which the Spanish arms are conspicuously and skilfully worked from the solid stone; and, after passing a low archway, with the guard-room and quarters of the officer of the guard, on either side, you enter a square area. The moulding over the largest door, opposite the principal gate, the profusion of ornament upon the vener able doors, the care which has evidently been taken in the construction of all its outward decorations, point out the ancient chapel of the fortress. It is an arched room, and the altar and ornamented niches in the wall, are all that remain to show its former character. Three nations have held the place; and the standard of Spain, of St. George, and the stars and stripes have successively waved over old St. Mark's. It was a place of confinement for American prisoners taken by the English, during the war of the Revolution. Powel, and other Seminole chieftains, have also been confined here; and the room is pointed out, from which Wild-Cat, and a number of his warriors, escaped, by forcing their way through an apparently impassable aperture, some fifteen or twenty feet above the Aoor. Whatever controversy there may be as to the adventures of Vespucci from 1495 to 1505, every thing after that is well ascertained, from authentic documents published by †NavarColumbus, being at Seville in 1505, writes to his son Diego in the following terms: rete. 'I have conversed with Amerigo Vespucci, the bearer of this, who is called thither by some concerns of navigation. He always had a wish to do me pleasure. He is a very excellent man. Fortune has been adverse to him, as to many others his labors have not produced him so much as reason requires. He goes as in my service, and with great desire to do something which may redound to my benefit, if occasion offers. I do not know here what I can employ him upon for my advantage, because I know not what they want there. He goes determined to do for me every thing possible. See in what he can assist, and labor on it; for he will do and say every thing, and will put it in train.' → Pronounced Vayspoochice. + Navarraytay. + Decaygo. |
