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gaging, and always suffered herself to be dressed and painted by Desire.

11. The Muses wove, in the loom of Pallas,' a loose and changeable robe, like that in which Falschood captivated her admirers with this they invested Truth, and named her Fiction. She now went out again to conquer with more success; for when she demanded entrance of the Passions, they often mistook her for Falsehood, and delivered up their charge; but when she had once taken possession, she was soon disrobed by Reason, and shone out, in her original form, with native effulgence and resistless dignity. DR. JOHNSON.

100. THE PHANTOM SHIP.

I.

THE breeze had sunk to rest, the noonday sun was high, And ocean's breast lay motionless beneath a cloudless sky.

There was silence in the air, there was silence in the deep; And it seem'd as though that burning calm were nature's final sleep.

II.

The mid-day watch was set, beneath the blaze of light,

When there came a cry from the tall mast-head, "A sail! a sail,

in sight!"

And o'er the far hori'zon a snowy speck appear'd,

And every eye was strain'd to watch the vessel as she near'd.

III.

There was no breath of air, yet she bounded on her way,
And the dancing waves around her prow were flashing into spray.
She answer'd not their hail, alongside as she pass'd:

There were none who trod her spacious deck; not a seaman on the mast;

IV.

No hand to guide her helm: yet on she held her course;
She swept along that waveless sea, as with a tempest's force:

1 PALLAS, one of the names of MINERVA, the goddess of wisdom, called also ATHENA and TRITOTONIA.- See Biographical Sketch, p. 230.

A silence, as of death, was o'er that vessel spread:

She seem'd a thing of another world, the world where dwell the

dead.

V.

She pass'd away from sight, the deadly calm was o'er,

And the spell-bound ship pursued her course before the breeze

once more;

And clouds across the sky obscured the noonday sun,

And the winds arose at the tempest's call, before the day was done

VI.

Midnight-and still the storm raged wrathfully and loud,

And deep in the trough of the heaving sca labor'd that vessel proud:

There was darkness all around, save where lightning flashes keen Play'd on the crests of the broken waves, and lit the depths be

tween.

VII.

Around her and below, the waste of waters roar'd,

And answer'd the crash of the falling masts as they cast them overboard.

At every billōw's shock her quivering timbers strain;

And as she rose on a crested wave, that strange ship pass'd again.

VIII.

And o'er that stormy sea she flew before the gale,

Yet she had not struck her lightest spar, nor furl'd her loftiest sail. Another blinding flash, and nearer yet she seem'd,

And a pale blue light along her sails and o'er her rigging gleam'd.

IX.

But it show'd no seaman's form, no hand her course to guide;
And to their signals of distress the winds alone replied.
The Phantom Ship pass'd on, driven o'er her pathless way,
But helplessly the sinking wreck amid the breakers lay.

X.

The angry tempest ceased, the winds were hush'd to sleep,
And calm and bright the sun again shone out upon the deep.
But that gallant ship no more shall roam the ocean free;
She has reach'd her final haven, beneath the dark blue sea.

XI.

And many a hardy scaman, who fears nor storm nor fight,
Yet trembles when the Phantom Ship drives past his watch at

night;

For it augurs deatn and danger: it bodes a watery grave,
With sca-weeds for his pillow-for his shroud, the wandering wave.

ΑΝΟΝ.

FATH

101. COUNT FATHOM'S ADVENTURE.

ATHOM departed from the village that same afternoon under the auspices of his conductor, and found himself benighted in the midst of a forest, far from the habitations of men. The darkness of the night, the silence and solitude of the place, the indistinct images of the trees that appeared on every side stretching their extravagant arms athwart the gloom, conspired with the dejection of spirits occasioned by his loss to disturb his fancy, and raise strange phantoms in his imagination. Although he was not naturally superstitious, his mind began to be invaded with an awful horror, that gradually prevailed over all the consolations of reason and philosophy; nor was his heart free from the terrors of assassination.

2. In order to dissipate these disagreeable reveries, he had recourse to the conversation of his guide, by whom he was entertained with the history of divers travelers who had been robbed and murdered by ruffians, whose retreat was in the recesses of that very wood. In the midst of this communication, which did not at all tend to the elevation of our hero's spirits, the conductor made an excuse for dropping behind, while our traveler jogged on in expectation of being joined again by him in a few minutes. He was, however, disappointed in that hope: the sound of the horse's feet by degrees grew more and more faint, and at last altogether died away.

3. Alarmed at this circumstance, Fathom halted in the road, and listened with the most fearful attention; but his sense of hearing was saluted with naught but the dismal sighings of the trees, that seemed to foretell an approaching storm. According ly, the heavens contracted a more dreary aspect, the lightning

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began to gleam, the thunder to roll, and the tempest, raising its voice to a tremendous roar, descended in a torrent of rain.

4. In this emergency, the fortitude of our hero was almost quite overcome. So many concurring circumstances of danger and distress might have appalled the most undaunted breast; what impression then must they have made upon the mind of Ferdinand, who was by no means a man to set fear at defiance! Indeed, he had well-nigh lost the use of his reflection, and was actually invaded to the skin, before he could recollect himself so far as to quit the road, and seck for shelter among the thickets that surrounded him.

5. Having rode some furlongs into the forest, he took his station under a tuft of tall trees, that screened him from the storm, and in that situation called a council with himself, to deliberate upon his next excursion. He persuaded himself that his guide had deserted him for the present, in order to give intelligence of a traveler to some gang of robbers with whom he was connected; and that he must of necessity fall a prey to those banditti, unless he should have the good fortune to elude their search, and disentangle himself from the mazes of the wood.

6. Harrowed with these apprehensions, he resolved to commit himself to the mercy of the hurricane, as of two evils the least, and penetrate straight forward through some devious opening, until he should be delivered from the forest. For this purpose he turned his horse's head in a line quite contrary to the direction of the high road which he had left, on the supposition that the robbers would pursue that tract in quest of him, and that they would never dream of his deserting the highway to traverse an unknown forest amidst the darkness of such a boisterous night.

7. After he had continued in this progress through a succession of groves, and bogs, and thorns, and brakes, by which not only his clothes, but also his skin suffered in a grievous manner, while every nerve quivered with eagerness and dismay, he at length reached an open plain, and pursuing his course, in full hope of arriving at some village where his life would be safe, he descried a rushlight, at a distance, which he looked upon as the star of his good fortune; and riding toward it at full speed, arrived at the door of a lone cottage, into which he was admitted

by an old woman, who, understanding he was a bewildered trav eler, received him with great hospitality.

8. When he learned from his hōstess that there was not another house within three leagues, and that she could accommodate him with a tolerable bed, and his horse with lodging and oats, he thanked Heaven for his good fortune in stumbling upon this humble habitation, and determined to pass the night under the protection of the old cottager, who gave him to understand, that her husband, who was a fagot-maker, had gone to the next town to dispose of his merchandise, and that in all probability he would not return till the next morning, on account of the tempestuous night.

9. Ferdinand sounded the beldam with a thousand artful interrogations, and she answered with such an appearance of truth and simplicity, that he concluded his person was quite secure;· and, after having been regaled with a dish of eggs and bacon, desired she would conduct him into the chamber where she proposed he should take his repose. He was accordingly ushered up by a sort of ladder into an apartinent furnished with a standing bed, and almost half filled with trusses of straw. He seemed extremely well pleased with his lodging, which in reality exceeded his expectations; and his kind landlady, cautioning him against letting the candle approach the combustibles, took her leave, and locked the door on the outside.

102. COUNT FATHOM'S ADVENTURE-CONCLUDED.

FATHON

NATHOM, whose own principles taught him to be suspicious, and ever upon his guard against the treachery of his fellowcreatures, could have dispensed with this instance of her care in confining her guest to her chamber; and began to be seized with strange fancies, when he observed that there was no bolt on the inside of the door, by which he might secure himself from intrusion. In consequence of these suggestions, he proposed to take an accurate survey of every object in the apartment, and, in the course of his inqui'ry, had the mortification to find the dead body of a man, still warm, who had been lately stabbed, and concealed beneath several bundles of straw.

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