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    south-east , announced a ' blow / as the sailors called it ; and after taking in the smaller canvass , and reefi ng the larger , the ship turned her broad beam to the one side , and dipped her bulwarks in the water on the other , making a steep hill of her flat decks , * and as I had not yet found my sea-legs , mocking every attempt I made to stand or move without clinging to ropes or cleats , to catch at which I pitched as courage-gathering intervals permitted . And when the sea was up , how terribly grand it appeared to be ! as the green hills rose higher and higher , hills chasing hills , and bounding after each other , in magnificent delight ! The whole sea was alive—as one vast spirit that

    threw its ten thousand huge limbs out and abroad into its cloud-encompassed domain , tossing its mighty arms aloft , and now sweeping its hands along the verge of the horizon , elevating * them as if to crush , by a ponderous stroke , the adventurous but feeble intruder on their path , and dropping the upheaved limb for the purpose of lifting her

    out of the gulf , and over the sparkling , foam-splintered crests , and dashing her down again , to leave her as the sport of each succeeding billow ; each in turn sweeping on with destruction in its sinews , and each in turn , as the crushing blow was pending , in the very act of falling , mercifully stooping to lift the trembling victim out of its course ; then rolling onwards till it seemed to sink in the slumber of

    fatigue , and all smoothing their monster gambols into repose as they melted in the distant horizon sky . The first feelings on beholding such a scene are fearful ; the gazer gasps in the inevitability of destruction , and wonders at escape ; each buoyant uprising of the ship seems to drag him from a depth of death ; another , and another , and another green hill , in densely sounding inarch , comes on , and then looks toppling downwards on him , and ere he can shriek , ' we are

    lost , ' the masts are upwards soaring , as they d pierce the moon : less and less the danger dims ; the ocean music , as it roars , and howls , and screams through the invisible strings of its mighty harp , and wailing faints among the cordage of the bark , becomes a lullaby to terror , and dread is rocked to rest . Thus , by * the aid of use / confidence triumphs over fear , and that which lately shook us with alarm ,

    now bids the spirit spring elastic in enjoyment . The leaping hills of waters yield to the fancy , the ship is mistress of their strength as she rides a moment on their arched backs , and laughs as she scatters the foam from their crests , then swings herself down into the deep gorge , and , with the impetus , remounts and laughs again amid the cloud of spray that breaks and flashes forth its million globules of light that radiate around the lady of the billows .

    So it was now ; so with my feelings I soon learned to look saucily on the yea . A sort of braggart spirit rose in me , as the ship lifted me with her in her overtopping sovereignty of the billows . I fancied myself their master ; an impertinence which they retaliated by slapping my face with a cold slice of wave that took away my breath , and

    drenched me from head to foot , and then rolled on in contempt of my discomfort , not deigning to cast a look back at the effects of their reproof , and heedless , too , of the rough laugh which their malicious sport drew from the sailors . Still I held on to a belaying-pin , ensconced under the lee of the bulwark , and peeping above it to catch occasional

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    Autobiography of Pel Verjuice . 701

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1833, page 701, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2624/page/41/