those around me beheld in that white foam the maddened breakers dashing over an extensive reef. I know not how it was, and I have since thought of it with wonder, that, with imminent danger thus staring them in the face, the energy, the very spirit of the people seemed frozen up! As yet, the vessel had only struck faintly, and had again got into deep water; but still she journeyed on her career to destruction, while those on board stood gazing at the danger in stupid dismay, or hurried confusedly about the decks, impeding each other in their vain attempts to avoid it. One recommended this, another suggested that; and, in the very multitude of counsel, nothing of advantage was adopted. The alarm had not as yet spread throughout the ship, and the second mate, who had the watch, seemed anxious only to avoid arousing the captain. All this, though it takes some time to relate, occupied but the space of a minute. Presently, the ship shot suddenly a-head, and as suddenly became arrested in her career with a violence that shook her in every timber. Now then ensued a scene which baffies description. The cabins of the passengers, the berths of the seamen and soldiers, were simultaneously quitted by their occupants; and, naked as they had risen, they crowded up the hatchways, dismayed and terror struck. Our captain, a man remarkable for the energy and decision of his character, was the first on deck. One silent glance he threw a-head, one aloft at the shaking and creaking masts, a third over the side; then muttering to himself in a strange tone of levity and pain, "A pretty night's work!" he endeavoured to recall the people to a sense of their duty. Alas! in that hour, even he had lost his influence. In vain he commanded, threatened, and appealed; in vain himself and a courageous few exerted themselves; their weak efforts availed not; and, when again the ship struck, and with the furious concussion started the rudder, which, as it rose, broke up the gun and upper decks, and the impetuous swell fairly made a breach over them and their affrighted occupants; then broke forth a scream so soul harrowing and unnatural-its thrilling intensity yet rings in my ears!-and a cry "the boats, the boats" became general; and numbers gathered about the captain, who leant against the capstern in silent anguish, watching the work of destruction he could not avert. The chief mate had rendered himself at once an object of fear and respect to the crew and passengers, from his extreme and even morose reserve, and the harsh, imperative tone of his manners. He was a man in the decline of life; and to a tall, fleshless, though sinewy figure, were united an ashy and withered cheek, eyes stiff and glaring, and thin black lips curled into an habitual and sullen snarl. He had shown himself on all occasions an admirable seaman; but he studiously avoided any communion with his shipmates, and repulsed, with haughty abruptness, any attempt to elicit his confidence. He had been of the few who fruitlessly attempted to heave the ship a-back on the first alarm, and he now stood on the quarter deck; his long lean arms folded across his broad chest, and savage scorn glowered in his wasted and wrinkled features, as he gazed on the recreant crowd that pressed around the captain. 66 Back, back!" he exclaimed, “your own cowardice has lost the ship ;perish then, like dogs as you are!"Startled by the bitter disdain expressed in his deep, sepulchral tones, the men drew back, and the mate, turning to the captain, went on in a voice a fearful contrast to its former impetuosity, by its absolute and calm coldness :· -"Is nothing to be done?-are the ladiesare we all to perish without one effort?" I was standing near the man at the time. His undaunted, and even lofty carriage; the fiery spirit that seemed to shine out through his worn and shattered frame; our very situation, perhaps, by heightening the effect of his singular bearing, together conspired to give him an almost resistless authority; and numbers followed his directions as under the influence of some master spell. An anchor was let go under the bows, in the hopes of staying her progress forward; and preparations were made to hoist out the long boat, that, by carrying an anchor astern, an attempt might be made to heave the ship off the reef. By the lead, too, we found she had struck in comparatively deep water, and on a sandy bottom. The spirit of the mate appeared to have extended to all on board; and passengers, seamen and soldiers emulated each other in their exertions. Woman is at best but a forlorn creature at sea; and, in such a situation, the conviction of her utter helplessness aggravates the horror of her situation. I will not attempt to describe the sufferings of those on board, for, with shame I confess it, during the panic which prevailed, they had remained unheeded and uncared for; but now that innate and sacred feeling which prompts man, in the hour of peril, to protect the weak and defenceless of the softer sex, had again assumed its sway in our bosoms, and anxiously did we turn our attention to these, unfortunates. Paralyzed with terror, they clung with instinctive eager ness to the bosoms of the seamen, who carried them below to the half-deck, whither the water had not yet penetrated. Man is a mysterious being. It seemed scarcely possible that those men, whose rugged features now glistened with the divine feelings which warmed their bosoms, as they compassionately tended these drooping creatures, and in nature's homely and eloquent language whispered the accents of comfort and safety, were the same in whom, not an hour since, all sense of manhood and courage was swallowed up in the overwhelming emotions of apathetic terror which incompassed their spirits. But the wind gradually freshened into a hard gale, and the long heavy surf, momentarily breaking over the wreck, much retarded our efforts to launch the long boat. Cold, wet, surrounded by darkness and a tremendous sea, deafened by its harsh roar, and the fiend-like howlings of the gale, as it whistled among the rigging or shook and clashed the loose sails with the noise of thunder, the spirits of the men again gradually sunk beneath their discouraging influence. Still we toiled on, until it seemed as if the powers of darkness and the storm had, unitedly, poured forth their fury for our destruction. A momentary lull had given a little impetus to our exertions: the boat, suspended over the ship's side, was gradually being lowered into the water, and two men within steadied her while descending. Foremost in the operation was the singular being who had played so important a part in the events of the night. Suddenly dropping the rope he grasped, be listened for a moment in an attitude of deep attention, and then exclaimed, in hasty alarm," Let every one, as he values life, hold on!" The words had scarcely passed his lips, when a whirlwind blast swept across the ship, in its fury tearing every sail which had hung disregarded to the yards, with a deafening crash from its bolt rope, and carrying away the foremast and main-top mast. Lightning, too, and rain came with it, and the sea, lashed into added fury, dashed over the starboard-quarter (in which direction the squall had come,) tearing up bulwarks and stauntions; and hen coops, guns, water-casks, and living men, floated in wild confusion from side to side. I had instinctively clasped a gun, near which I stood; and as the sea rushed on board, bearing down the vessel on her larboard side, I just distinguished the rapid clattering of blocks, and the dash of something heavy among the breakers-it was the long boat!Startled by the mate's emphatic warning, succeeded, as it instantly was, by the squall, each had immediately quitted the falls to seek his own safety; and the long-boat, with the two men, precipitately descended into the water.Poor wretches! while yet a similar fate seemed inevitably mine, I felt a mingled thrill of pity and horror at its dreadful consummation. Encumbered by the ropes attached to it and the ship, the boat, after dashing for a space among the impetuous surf, furiously rebounded against the mainchains, and instantly swamped. But, the men!-I heard withering cries, and a quick plashing among the boiling waters, and then gurgling groans; for the violence of the blast had passed away, and given place to a sad and ominous calmness. Yet this was nought to the fearful spectacle on deck. The fore-mast had fallen over the larboard side, and two wretches writhed beneath it in helpless agony. On the quarterdeck, too, there was blood and conten tion; for every one had crowded thither, women, and seamen, and soldiers. Irritated by the anguish of the injuries they had sustained; rendered reckless by their desperate situation; inflamed, too, by the ardent spirits either party had liberally indulged in, the angry and bitter feelings of man's nature had be come aroused, and querrulous complainings, and smothered curses, and the scowl of malice, heightened inte open and passionate revilings, till, at length, blow succeeded blow, and the headlong and mortal struggle became general; as though the wrath of the elements were not already too much, but man must seek his enemy in his fellowsufferer! A dispute had broken out between the seamen and soldiers. Handspikes and crow-bars, bayonets and belaying pins, were their formidable weapons. In vain did the more tempe rate, and perhaps, the more numerous portion interfere, to put a stop to the unnatural encounter; the infuriate men dealt their blows blindly and indiscriminately on friend and mediator. "This is too dreadful," at length exclaimed the captain; " if you are men, desist! Field," (and he seized the upraised arm of a man prepared to strike an already prostrate soldier,)— "you have sailed with me for five years; hitherto, I have esteemed you as a man and a seaman; and is this your conduct, and in such a night? Look around you, men, on the wild sea, and this shattered wreck, and ask yourselves how have ye done your duty as seamen and Englishmen ?-Shame! shame!" He had touched the right chord. The men, who, one by one, dropped their weapons as he proceeded, cowered forward to avoid the angry glance of that eye they were wont to fear and obey. Following up the advantage he had gained, the captain proceeded :—“ Ay, these feelings do ye honour. There, there; the mischief that is done cannot now be helped, but let us make all the amends we can. The day will soon break, and the wind has, in a great measure, subsided; we have two boats yet, and if the land, as I think, be near, we shall quickly see it. Poor lambs,' he continued, with deep feeling, as he looked down upon the females, who, beneath the united effects of the cold, wet, and affright, lay senseless upon the deck; "what can be done for them?" He raised one in his arms, but the head with its long tresses, bent lifelessly on her bosom, and her arms dropped down relaxed by her side. "God! they are dead!" uttered he, in a tone of horror. We chafed their pale hands, and paler temples, and applied all the remedies our ignorance, or poor ability suggest ed; but these weak efforts availed but little. Life was not indeed extinct, but the horrors of the night appeared to have arrested all sense and perception. Motionless, and with closed eyes, they reclined upon our bosoms, a faint sigh or convulsive movement of the lips alone betraying existence. There was one among them returning to a mother she had not seen from earliest infancy, but on whose gentle heart the image of that mother was stamped with the never-dying intensity of true affection, and the sweet soul wept, and uttered a low plaintive and dove-like cry, "My mother, my mother!" Convinced that any efforts we could make would be unavailing, until day broke to discover our real situation, sadly and anxiously did our miserable party watch the first faint streaks of silver that heralded its approach,—and day at length beamed! To be continued. LUNATIC LAYS. "I want to go upon the stage." I WANT to go upon the stage, And wear a wig and feathers, I envy each tragedian The laurels that he gathers; I'm sure that I could give effect To Richard's ruthful menace: Oh would that I might black my face, And act the Moor of Venice! My father talks of what he calls One day I stole a pot of rouge, And Aunt Jane's Sunday spencer(She left me nothing in her will How could I so incense her!) 1 few to Cowes, where in a barn He did announce me as a star- In Aunt Jane's pink silk garment. A most delicious creature! With eyes-such eyes! and ob! her nose, I idolised the feature! Pink silk, with frogs, was my costume, And her's was muslin spangled, And when the nurse called her away, I wish'd she had been strangled; When we lay corpses side by side, A gentle squeeze she gave me, And whisper'd," Wilt thou be my love?" I sigh'd," Ay, if thou'lt have me!" But fathers they have flinty hearts, My angry father found meOh horrid night! methinks I see Scene-shifters grinning round me! Alas! the scene they shifted notThe very pit seems full yetI cannot tell the tragedy He tore me from my Juliet ! My father's thoughts are centred. I roar a word or two, and then Genteelly comic I can be, And farcically sprightly, I'm excellent in Pantomime, In Ballet parts dance lightly; Were Mr. Lee, the new lessee, Aware of such a treasure, If I ask'd fifty pounds a night, He'd give them me with pleasure. New Mon. Mag. ENIGMAS. For the Olio. THE word ænigma, which is derived from the Greek substantive ainigma, which the Latins call scirpus, signifies an obscure speech, or discourse, covering something common and universally known, under remote and uncommon terms. It is also frequently called riddle, probably from the Belgic readen, or the Saxon araethan-to interpret. Fra. Junius defines an ænigma to be an obscure parable or allegory, of which, he says, there are two kinds; the greater rendering the sentence more intricate and difficult of solution, by a multitude of words, and the lesser consisting of one or more words remote in their allusion, as in Isaiah, chap. xi. verse 1, where Jesus Christ is called, according to the Greek language, rabdos, which rendered into English, signifies a twig or young branch. Enigmas are, sometimes, the representations of the works of nature or of art, concealed under human figures, drawn from history or fable; thus our Saviour, in the middle of the doctors, represents the Bible, &c. The use of ænigmas was very common among the Egyptians; and it is supposed that they borrowed their custom from the Hebrews, with whom ænigmas were certainly not less in use. In the 14th chapter of Judges, 12th and 13th verses, Solomon says, "I will now put forth a riddle to you," &c. which is, according to Vatable, an ænigmatical problem; this the LXX. render by the Greek noun problema (a proposition.) Solomon is said to have been particularly skilful in the solution of ænigmas; and we are assured by Clemens, that the Egyptians placed sphinges before their temples, to intimate that the doctrines of God and religion were ænigmatical and obscure. Some represent the ænigma as synonymous with the word gryphus; but the more exact writers make a distinction, though wherein the difference lies is not agreed on. Some say that the ænigma properly imports something merry or jocose, and gryphus a subject more grave or profound. Others reduce the difference to this, that in the gryphus there is something captious, and capable of leading into a snare, which is not found in the ænigma. The rebus is also ranked by some in the number of ænigmas. In a general sense, however, every dark saying, every difficult question, every parable, &c. may pass for an ænigma; hence obscure laws are called ænigmata juris. The alchemists are great dealers in the ænigmatic language, their processes for the philosopher's stone being generally wrapped up in riddles, for example-"Fac ex mare et famina circulum, inde quadrangulum, hinc triangulum, hinc triangulum, fac circulum et habebis lapidem philosophorum." The operation of cupping, performed in ancient days by a machine of brass, is ingeniously represented by the following ænigma, translated from the Greek as follows: I saw a man, who, unprovok'd with ire, Arist. Rhetor. 1. iii. c. 2 t. 2. p. 586. Aulus Gellius (xii. 6.) has preserved a Latin ænigma, which he also calls a sirpus or sirpos, debased (says Mr. Harris in his Philological Inquiries, p. 202) with all the quibble of a barbarous age : "Semel minusne, an bis minus (non sat scio) An utrumque eorum (ut quondam audivi dicier) Jovi ipsi regi noluit concedere." It is thus translated by Mr. Harris: Was it once minus or twice minus, (I am not enough informed), or was it not rather the two taken together, (as I have heard it said formerly), that would not give way to Jove himself, the sovereign." The two taken together, that is, once minus, and twice minus, make, when so taken, thrice minus; and thrice minus in Latin is ter minus, which taken as a single word is terminus, the god of boundaries. The meaning of the riddle coincides with the pagan legend, which says, that when in honour to Jove the capitol was founded, the other gods consented to retire, but the god Terminus refused. The moral of the fable is just and ingenious, namely, that boundaries are sacred and never should be moved. The famous riddle of the sphinx must be known to all your classical readers, but as you have undoubtedly many who are anti-classical, I subjoin for their amusement a short description of it. The sphinx was a horrid monster that infested the neighbourhood of Thebes in Boeotia, and was sent, as mythologists say, by Juno, to punish the family of Cadmus. It had the head and breasts of a woman, the body of a dog, the tail of a serpent, the wings of a bird, the paws of a lion, and a human voice. This infernal pest filled the inhabitants of Thebes and the parts adjacent with the greatest terror, by proposing ænigmas, and devouring all who were not able to explain them. In the midst of their consternation they were told by the oracle, that the sphinx would destroy herself as soon as one of the ænigmas she proposed was explained.. In this ænigma she wished to know what animal walked upon four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening, which was explained by Edipus, who observed that it was man, who walked on his hands and feet when young, or in the morning of life; at the noon of life he walked erect; and in the evening of his days he supported his infirmities by a stick. The sphinx no sooner heard this explanation than she dashed her head against a rock, and immediately expired. I shall close this article with the following ænigma, of which the solutions are very numerous, but none of them very satisfactory: "D. M.. Nec cœlo, nec aquis, nec terris,, LUCIUS AGATHO PRISCIUS The other copy of this ænigma was found written in Gothic letters in a MS. at Milan, introduced with A. M. P. P. D. instead of D. M., diis manibus, which an anonymous author (Act. Erud. Lips. Mens. Mart. 1732) interpreting the riddle of a monument erected by one of the Elian family to his own soul, decyphers thus-" Animæ meæ propriæ dico." At the end is the following addition: "Hoc est sepulchrum intus cadaver non habens, Hoo est cadaver sepulchrum extra non habens. Sed cadaver idem est et sepulchrum sibi" (i. e.) "Here is a sepulchre without a corpse: here is a corpse without a sepulchre. The corpse and the sepulchre are one and the same." On the four sides of the stone on which the above is inscribed, there are twelve different explanations, with the names of their sagacious authors. Mario Michael Angelo will have it to be rain; Licetus, the beginning and end of friendship; Gevartius, love; Pontinus, the remains of three different persons; Turrius, the materia prima; Barnaud, an eunuch, or the philosopher's s'one; Agathias Scholasticus, Niobe; R. Vitus, the rational soul, or the idea Platonis; Boxhornius, a shadow; Ovid Montalbanus, hemp; M. de Cicogne, Pope Joan; Heumaunus, Lot's wife; an anonymous person, the Chrismondius, a law-suit; and Count Maltian Church; Terronus, music; Vesvasia, in a treatise entitled, "Elia Lalia Crispis non nata resurgens,” interprets it of a daughter promised to a person in marriage, who died pregnant of a male child before the celebra-tion of her nuptials. The subject of an ænigma should be Nec molem, nec pyramidem, nec se- something easily conceived and gene pulchrum, Sed omnia, Scit et nescit cui posuerit." Thus translated: ELIA LELIA CRISPIS, who was neither male, female, nor her mophrodite ; neither a girl, nor a young woman, nor an old woman; neither chaste, nor a harlot, nor a modest woman, but all these. She died neither by famine, nor sword, nor poison, but by all these. She lies neither in the air, nor in the water, nor in the earth, but everywhere. Lucius Agatho Priscius, neither husband, nor lover, nor relation, neither sorrowful nor rejoicing, nor weeping, erected this, which is neither fabric, nor pyramid, nor tomb, but all these; but to whom, he knows, and does not know." rally known, otherwise it loses its point; for if a physician, for instance, were to give a person unacquainted with physic an ænigma to solve, clothed in all the technicalities of his art, it is evident that he would not be able to explain it; and even if the solution were given him, he would, in all probability, be as wise A CANTAB. as he was before. MR. BUCKINGHAM'S INTENDED PLAN FOR CIRCUMNAVIGATING THE GLOBE. The few more "last words" which Mr. Buckingham delivered at the Mechanics' Institute, in the evening of the 30th ult. were explanatory of his intended enterprise of discovery round. |