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Untitled Article
on anchoring , I saw enough to repay me , in some measure , for my former disappointment , and enough to make me feel the dryness of imprisonment ; for as to my being permitted to press that verdure , or sit under those trees , or ramble among those hedgerow walks and woods , that was a hope not to be entertained for a moment . But hope with me was ever stretching forth a far reaching and gladdening hand , and grasping at the distant visions of fancy , till the eager spirit transformed them into distinctlymoulded realities . 'Tis thus I have ever such an abundant store of duplicate enjoyments ; and when reality does fail to gratify , ay , when it obliterates the dream , I am still happy that I have so dreamt . Say what you please , reader , of this folly , this selfmocking humour of the blood , I trust and pray it will never dry up in me , till the undertaker comes to measure me for my last
covering . Folks that cannot or will not so dream , feel but a modicum of the pleasures which fall , justly , to their share in this world ; they live only half a life . I was daily dreaming while we lay at Spit head ; for conjecture was busying itself on whither we should be ordered to go . To-day it was the East Indies , to-morrow the West , then came tidings of the Mediterranean , and , occasionally , misgivings that we were condemned to Channel groping , or to live , if we could , thro ugh sleet , and snow , and ice , a winter in the North Sea . These fears , happily , were dispelled by a posse of tiptop dandy clerks coming on board to pay wages and bounty , for word \ Vas passed , an order smoothed off into a request , a wish , that all the blue jackets should provide themselves with warm climate rigging , —Banians or Guernsey frocks , and white trowsers . Hah ! now I was alive again , the further the better ; and next day we weighed ; rumour ran that we were going first to the Cove of Cork , to wait for a fleet of traders , which we were to convoy . It was on the passage from
Spithead to Cork , that , for the first time , I saw a man flogged man-of-war fashion , and oh !—but I have promised not to grumble in January , so , if you please , reader , we will let this affair stand over awhile , till after the holidays ; but lest the hint should metamorphose the plums in your pudding to pebbles , or the sugar on your twelfth cake to aloes , take this : that man was a thief , and a treacherous knave , to boot .
On the third day of our swinging along from Spithead , as the early morning fog cleared away , the ship ' s head was pointing as directly amidships of the two projections which form the entrance to Cork harbour , as if she had been measured to the place witli a carpenter ' s rule . Who does not wonder at this ? It is the exactness of science , precision of calculation , and a constant watchfulness , which , carried to the highest perfection in ships of war , causes less surprise at their escaping the hidden perils of the sea , than at their stumbling on them . Remember , you don ' t tie your ship to a tree at night , there ; the road is not macadamized , there are
Untitled Article
Autobiography of Pel . Verjuice . fifr
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1834, page 27, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2629/page/27/
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