novation coming in like a flood, and it threatens to overturn all the decencies of life, or, perhaps, I ought rather to say of death. The thing is this: of late years it has become the practice of these brethren of the brief, that whenever any of their number departs from this life, you may see one of them hurrying into court, his eyes swelling with importance, squeezing up to the bench, whispering something in the ear of the judge; the judge rises, rolling his eyes on the ceiling, his face as long as a pelican in the wilderness. He lets the woful tidings drop, viz. that our worthy brother Caption has just taken leave of the world, and therefore, that you may have time to shed crocodile tears, the court stands adjourned to Monday next, at 11 of the clock; this was on Friday. The Revised Statutes do not empower the judge to stop the wheels of justice, and pocket two days salary of the people's money on any such occasion. Next day a meeting is held, resolutions made, crape on the arm for thirty days, &c. Now what is this but pride? What right has any class in society to exalt themselves by themselves? What do they more than others? Is not a respectable merchant, a carpenter, a printer, or bricklayer, just as useful in his place as any lawyer? Now, suppose the merchants in Pearl-Street, or suppose the master-builders were to shut their shops for two days; and suppose they were to hold meetings in the Park,

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and wear crape for thirty days whenever one of the fraternity died-why our streets would be filled with a set of idle vagabonds, our stores as dark as midnight, and the city clothed in sackcloth and ashes; and yet these men have a better right to shut their stores, and close their shops, than the judge has to stop the sale of justice for two days.

Besides, is not this intended to establish a dangerous precedent, a sort of law, full of aristocracy? Thinking, perhaps, that they receive not honour enough from men in this life, it may be they intend to try the experiment whether or not they cannot introduce some old, obsolete, heathenish custom of paying honours to the dead, and thereby we will have all the lawyer's deified. This would be surely something new in the other world, and in this also. When a lawyer dies, what more have we to do with him, or for him, than for any other member of the community who makes his money by his hands or his wits? If a lawyer has a head and a tongue, and knows how to make use of them, he has his reward in this world, and when he dies society owes him nothing-no more than they do to a master-builder, who, having finished the house, receives his money, and then departs this life. But this subject is so prolific, and so full of bad precedent and bad practice, that I hardly know where to leave off. But enough, I think, has been said. to

convince every man in New-York, that it is high time they should set their faces against this piece of selfcreated pride.

But all this has nothing to do with the book; and perhaps the least said on that subject will be the soonest mended. If the story is a good one it will sell; if not, those who don't like it, can just let it alone.

HALLET'S COVE, 5th Dec., 1834.

THE AUTHOR.

CHAPTER I.

JOURNAL FROM NEW-YORK TO LIVERPOOL-REFLECTIONS ON LEAVING LAND-SEAMEN'S CHARACTER-A PASSENGER FROM SHIP GENERAL WILLIAMS-A FUNERAL AT SEA.

Oct. 9, 1833-Ship George Washington, at 12 P.M., with a strong northwester and an unclouded sky, we took our departure from the Hook, the light-house due west three miles; shortly after we lost sight of land. I have more than once known what it is to take the last look of the land which contained all I held dear. It is at times such as this that the imagination delights to be busy, and at which she often plays the tyrant over the affections, by throwing the charms of a double fascination around the objects and scenes from which we are torn, as, with rapid pencil, she sketches in vivid colouring all I have left behind. I keenly feel the reality of my departure, and am almost ready to wonder that I could voluntarily have undertaken, at such a sacrifice, a voyage, attended with much uncertainty, and necessarily involving many a hazard; but in my better judgment I cannot

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