spring circuit as marshal, with Sir John Coleridge, his uncle. He returned worse, and he never really rallied, although the progress of his disease was slow. He tried Whitby, Sidmouth, Blackpool, and Hampstead, all equally in vain, giving up very reluctantly, and only a few months before his death, his regular work at Lincoln's Inn, and never giving up, as I have said, such work as he could do at home. I cannot pretend to say whether the south of Europe or Madeira might not have saved his life; but it was useless to suggest it to him. He clung passionately to his studious habits of life, to his home, to his books, to his friends-to one dearest friend of all, who lives to mourn him, for whose sake chiefly, indeed, he ever left London at all. Supported by her, with his only sister kneeling by his bedside, and while his friend, Mr. H. Burrows, was administering the Blessed Sacrament to them, he fell asleep.

Such was the life and such the death of Herbert Coleridge. His life was uneventful; and, if measured by the actual results of his labour, he seems to have left but little behind him to justify the strong impression of power and promise he made upon all who knew him well. But all who knew him well received

this impression, and think with a certain. sad regret on the unfufilled renown which was all he achieved here. For such only, probably, will these few lines have any serious interest, but they will admit that a cousin's hand has here dealt out to him in very straitened measure the honour he deserved. They, too, will treasure the memory of his warm heart and the affectionate disposition; of his character and temper, softened from any harshness, and refined and purified from any selfishness into considerate and almost tender gentleness, by the affliction which he took as it becomes a Christian to take what it pleases God to send; of his religion, sincere and deep-thoughtful as might be expected in the grandson and profound admirer of S. T. Coleridge -but remarkably free from pretence or display; of a man careless, perhaps too careless, about general society and ordinary acquaintance, but giving his whole heart where he gave it at all, and giving it stedfastly. To their kindness I venture to commend this fading record of a common love and a common sorrow. I most sincerely wish it were worthier of both. I am, sir, Your obedient servant,

JOHN DUKE COLERIDGE. To the Editor of MACMILLAN'S MAGAZINE.

WITHIN sight of the Landsend, and overlooked by bluff Cape Cornwall, with its ambitious ascent from a low contracted neck of green to a high rounded slope widening out into the sea until it is abruptly terminated by rough rockpeaks standing precipitously in the surf, lie two pointed rocks some sixty feet above the waves that dash against them. At low water a narrow ledge of rocks unites the lonely sisters-for "Sisters" their name of Brissons is said to have signified in the perished tongue of the Cornishman; but with the swelling tide they become two crag-islands, apart in

the broken waters, rising bleak and desolate more than a mile from the shore, the resort of wild sea-birds, who do well to choose themselves a home offering barely resting-place for the foot of man, and sometimes, when tempests have stirred the waters along that dangerous western coast, unapproachable for weeks together.

A wild wind stormed on them from the south-west one gloomy morning of January, 1851; a black fog gathered round them. A merchant brig on her way to the Spanish main, gale-driven through the darkness, struck on the low

uniting ledge. The sea dashed mercilessly against her, and almost immediately she was a shapeless confusion of planks and spars floating away piecemeal, never to breast the waves a tidy brig again. But her crew had escaped her fate nine men and one woman, the master's wife, stood shivering under the tossing spray on the strip of rocks that had been their deadly enemy, and was now for a while their safety. At length the daylight dawned, and they were seen from the shore, and they could see the shore, with a crowd gathering and gathering on it, and knew, as surely as if they had heard, that help for them was the thought and the talk of every man in that great throng. There was hope now.

But in vain; no help could be rendered; and the waves dashed higher and higher round them, and the ledge sank lower and lower into the foaming waste. It was full morning now, about nine o'clock; nothing had been done, nothing could be done, though more than two thousand were watching their nearing fate. A fierce white wave plunged over them, and they were drawn into the great water-grave. Seven souls gasped into death. The sea threw one man against the smaller Brisson; it was the master of the lost vessel. He clung to a jutting rock, and clambered into safety. A great billow rolled by him, bearing along his struggling wife; seizing her floating dress he was able to drag her towards him and assist her to gain a footing on the rock. Together they climbed high out of the reach of the waves, and were free from instant peril of death, but that was all.

Meanwhile a Mulatto seaman of the brig had contrived to place himself on a fragment of her wreck. The sea raged against him, and threatened every moment to drive him back among the fatal surges; but he battled calmly with it for his life. With a plank for oar, and a piece of canvass for sail, he guided his raft from the turmoil, and struggled towards the shore. For two or three hours he remained beaten to and fro by the waves, the strong south-west wind

helping him nearer land, the angry billows placing death between, his energy of mind and body remaining unshaken while he steadily pursued his attempt. Five stout fishermen at Sennen cove, a little nook close to the Landsend, watched his fate as they stood among their neighbours, and saw now a possibility of helping him if their boat could but be launched through the breakers. A possibility which, after all, was a bare possibility, beset with danger and difficulty; but let it be tried. Their boat was launched through the opposing breakers; she got to sea; now she seemed to disappear; now she rose again; she forced her way towards the undaunted mulatto. Oh! well done, brave boat Grace ! She comes back triumphant through the raging waters, and lands in safety the rescued seaman and her noble crew. Three cheers for the five brave fishers of Sennen Cove, and their good boat Grace!

Dear

The sufferers on the rock have not been forgotten in the interval. On Cape Cornwall the Inspecting-Commander, his officers and men, are looking eagerly towards the Brissons, devising schemes of rescue. Round the storm-beaten Landsend the gallant little cutter he has sent is working her way bravely. little Sylvia, the most beautiful cutter in her Majesty's Revenue Service! So, at least, think I, who have watched her in every dress and in every weather till I grew to look on her as a familiar friend, and, in my child fancies, looking out at her on many a silver summer night as she lay in the bay in sight of my window, felt that, while all around me was sleeping, she and I awake were holding converse together across the quiet waters.

On she came victoriously round the point; and there, in the half hopeless hope that the approach to the rocks, which was impracticable from the Cape Cornwall shore, might be achieved from this less unfavourable quarter, her boat was launched, and her commanding officer with four of his men made the attempt. A brave hard-working, plain

spoken man he was, who had had his own way to make in the service, and made it. I should like to see him and shake hands with him again, though he would hardly recognise me now that eight years have separated me from the child who enjoyed so many and many a long summer day's cruise on board his cutter in the beautiful Mount's Bay.

It was a dangerous attempt he made, and a fruitless one. Nearing the Brissons was impossible; it seemed even impossible that his small boat could live in that furious sea. It must have given a sharp pang to the waiters on the rock to see the effort to reach them abandoned, and their would-be preservers turn back on their way, themselves in deadly peril. On shore there were fears that they would not make good their return; doubtless there were like fears in the boat too, and with alarming reason enough. But at length that danger was overcome, and the bold little crew regained the Sylvia, having risked their lives in vain.

And now the short winter day was over; all farther effort must be abandoned. Darkness began to gather over the waters; the crowd melted from the shore; the shore itself began to fade in the night shadows from the eyes of the hapless prisoners on the Little Brisson. They saw the Sylvia lie to for the night, taking her place in sight, and hoisting her colours to bid them hope still, for they were not deserted. It would be some comfort to them, as they looked out sadly through the gloom thickening over the fierce tumult of waters that prisoned them without shelter from the pitiless storm, without food in their exhaustion, without one drop of pure water in their fevered excitement, on a dreary rock through a long inclement night, to rest a look on the friendly vessel that gave them assurance of human sympathy-promise of coming efforts for their rescue, if not certainty of life hope at least.

It must have been a strange awful night for those two; a night of little sleep and much sorrow; doubtless-for they were man and wife, and in sight of

that threatening death must have been drawn very near in heart-of much love. People said there was unhappiness between them; she, the piously taught daughter of a dissenting minister, had married him, a rough, half-unbelieving man, against the wishes of her friends, and found that his ways were not her ways, and had a hard life of it, poor soul. They said she had gone on that voyage with him that her influence might "keep him steady," and so avert the menacing anger of his employers. Whether they said truly I do not know; but if so there must have been forgiveness and reconciliation, one would think, that night in the storm; they two together in the sight of God must have repented and forgiven all wrong that each had ever

worked the other.

No doubt through the long dark hours they buoyed each other up with hope. Did either whisper to the other that dread which must have been ever present, that after that miserable night there might be another and another and another, and they should still be there -not they, but two mouldering corpses lying ghastly under the sky in the seabird's haunt till days of tempest had passed by, and a calm came too late? Perhaps each seemed not to fear it, not to think of it, lest the other should be roused to the horror of that possibility. They spoke no doubt trustfully of their coming safety; they must wait patiently through the blackness; the storm would be less by the dawn; to-morrow would put an end to their fears and their dangers! And the morrow did end the fears and the dangers of both, but not to both alike-to one for ever.

When morning broke the fury of the waves was somewhat lowered, the wind veering slightly to the south-east, so that it became possible, not to reach the Brissons, but to get nearer to them than could be done the day before. Still this improvement seemed but useless. What prospect was there of relieving the sufferers, when, after all the hazard of struggling as near as was feasible, there must still remain more than a hundred yards between the hardiest boat which

should dare the effort and the rocks? There was one chance, and that was attended with such awful risk, and seemed so mere a chance, that few would have ventured to recommend its adoption. The rockets called Carter's Rockets had never been tried in that neighbourhood before; but the principal coastguard station at Penzance, some ten miles off, possessed three of them. By order of the Inspecting-Commander these were produced; and he left his residence at Penzance, whither he had returned the preceding night, on this Sunday morning, resolved to make trial of them.

The inventor of these rockets had never contemplated their being fired from a boat, for which they seemed in no way adapted; and the directions for their use were explicit in desiring the person who fired them to remain at a distance of full fifty feet, in order to secure himself from the danger of the great back fire from them.

It was to be apprehended that the inevitable vicinity to the back fire to which a person firing one of these rockets in a boat must submit, might make the experiment a fatal one. But Cape Cornwall, the nearest point to the Brissons, is a good mile from them; therefore nothing could be done from the shore, and the apparently desperate resource of using the rockets from a boat was the only one that remained for that day; and who could say what another day and night might work on the starving unsheltered beings on the rock, even should the state of the sea the next day allow of getting close to the Brissons?

It was a novel and perilous undertaking, but the effort was to be made.

The midday sun, which alternately disappeared in black clouds and flashed strong lights through sudden gaps, gleamed out strongly on several boats taking their ways from different points of the bay towards the Brissons. From Sennen Cove came three well-manned fishing boats and a coastguard crew; the Sylvia's boat was fast making for the scene of action; meanwhile from Pendeen Cove, a rough little spot two or

three miles north-east of Cape Cornwall, the Inspecting-Commander was approaching in the boat of that station.

Bursts of cheers saluted the boats as one by one they stayed their course as near the rocks as they could venture; Cape Cornwall, black with an ant-hill swarm of huddled human beings, seemed to shout with one mighty voice; and the cliffs and hollows round the bay echoed it back twofold. Then there was a great silence. The sky, black and gloomy again, seemed to add by its sombre shadow to the misgivings that were in every heart. All watched breathlessly.

The Pendeen boat, from which the rocket was to be fired, was cleared of her crew, who were ordered into one of the fishing boats, one man remaining in her. A gallant fellow, the Penzance gunner, had volunteered to fire the rockets; but as he had not had more experience in them than any one else present, which was simply none, his assistance was only accepted in making the arrangements for fixing the apparatus in the boat, and the InspectingCommander resolved that only one man should be exposed to the danger the experiment involved, and that that should be he who planned it. mained alone in the towed by one of the position he wished. were soon completed.

He himself reboat, which was others into the His preparations

A gentleman having much amateur skill afterwards painted this scene, and had his work presented to the chief actor in it, through a mutual friend. In his picture, the man in the rocketboat was represented with one foot well over her side, prepared, as he really was, to plunge into the sea in case of fire. Some little time later this picture was placed, in order to have some trifling injury remedied, in the hands of an inland artist. He quietly set to work to paint the leg back into the boat, explaining, on inquiry, that he did so "because it took from the repose of the picture!" But there was no repose round the Brissons on that Sunday morning; so the rocket-firer held himself ready to jump overboard if need

were, and trust to the boats near for rescuing him from peril of water, if so he might save himself from peril of fire.

The rocket was fired. From the shore, a sheet of flame was seen round the boat and its occupant; but it cleared away and he was safe. The aim, in spite of the tossing of the waves was true; the line passed over the Little Brisson, but, unfortunately, cut by a sharp jutting rock, fell back short into the sea. A second rocket must be tried. There were but three; should these fail, there was no hope. Or, should the next rocket prove damaged and burst? Certain death that, surely, to the firer! No matter; it must be tried. Very soon another hissed through the air; the rope lay across the rock beside the man; and, while the crowd on shore thundered out rejoicings, the woman clasped her hands as if in thanksgiving. The sun in that triumphant moment burst gloriously out from the blackness, and glowed full upon the Brissons and the rescuing boats, to which all eyes were turned.

She

The man fastened the rope round his wife's waist; she hesitated. They had come down to a level ridge of the rock, not more than twelve feet above the sea; but still it was a frightful leap, and into those boiling foam wreaths! looked down at the great surges; they seemed to talk together-at length courage had come to her and she was ready. They bade each other a loving farewell -a hopeful one no doubt, but it was for ever.

With the rope round her, one end of it in her husband's hand and the other in one of the boats, she plunged into the sea. And, at that fatal moment, three monster billows, one after the other, surged along, and it seemed as if all there would be lost. From the Cape the boats seemed to have sunk. "They are gone!" was groaned through all the multitude; women shrieked and wept; perhaps there were some strong men whose eyes swam in tears.

That alarm soon passed-the boats re

appeared, and were greeted with joyful cheers. The woman was being carefully drawn into the Sylvia's boat, in what condition the far-off watchers could not know, but they feared. And justly;

was.

the violence of the waves had been too much for her, worn and weakened as she She breathed still, but that was all. The cord round her waist had tightened terribly; the knot, probably, too tightly secured by a trembling hand, had dragged in the great strain on the rope during the struggle with those strong billows, so that not daring to sever it with a knife, the Sylvia's commander had to use his teeth to loosen it. Life was still in her then, he thought; but the matter was already hopeless. The crew made every effort possible they could to revive her; they covered her with their own clothes, and left nothing untried of the small means they had to restore warmth and animation. But in vain; they lifted her dead from the boat to the shore she had looked at so wistfully through so many painful hours. She sleeps peacefully in a Cornish churchyard, within sight of the sea that brought her death.

Better fortune awaited the attempt to save her husband. He leaped in a favourable moment; the waves battled more languidly with him; and he was drawn into another boat in full consciousness, though faint and feeble from exhaustion, and landed in safety soon to recover his former strength.

How his rescuers were received on their return, may well be imagined. That 12th of January will not soon be forgotten on that coast, and a deep, though sad interest will long cling round the lonely Brissons.

Not very long afterwards, the remaining rocket was tried at Penzance for experiment, with the usual precautions. It proved a spoilt one, and burst. What the result must have been had the second rocket failed on that stormy Sunday, and this been made use of, may be felt and shuddered at.