wherewith to impress the understanding and heart of the sailor, you undertake a very difficult thing. For though men are moved best by apt illustrations from the things familiar to them, unapt illustrations most surely disgust them.
But if you earnestly desire it, we know of but one certain course, which is best explained in a brief anecdote. An English gentleman, who was in all the agonies of a rough and tedious passage from Folkestone to Boulogne, was especially irritated by the aggravating nonchalance of a fellow-passenger, who perpetrated all manner of bilious feats, in eating, drinking, and smoking, unharmed. English reserve and the agony of sea-sickness long contended in Sir John's breast. At last the latter conquered, and, leaning from the window of his travelling-carriage, which was securely lashed to the forward deck of the steamer, he exclaimed,—"I say, d'ye know, I'd give a guinea to know your secret for keeping well in this infernal Channel." The traveller solemnly extended one hand for the money, and, as it dropped into his palm, with the other shaded his mouth, that no portion of the oracle might fall on unpaid-for ears, and whispered,—"Hark'ye, brother, GO TO SEA TWENTY YEARS, AS I HAVE."
THE WHIRLIGIG OF TIME.
"And thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges."—Twelfth Night.
My friend Jameson, the lawyer, has frequently whiled away an evening in relating incidents which occurred in his practice during his residence in a Western State. On one occasion he gave a sketch of a criminal trial in which he was employed as counsel; the story, as developed in court and completed by one of the parties subsequently, made so indelible an impression on my mind that I am constrained to write down its leading features. At the same time, I must say, that, if I had heard it without a voucher for its authenticity, I should have regarded it as the most improbable of fictions. But the observing reader will remember that remarkable coincidences, and the signal triumph of the right, called poetical justice, are sometimes seen in actual life as well as in novels.
The tale must begin in Saxony. Carl Proch was an honest farmer, who tilled a small tract of crown land and thereby supported his aged mother. Faithful to his duties, he had never a thought of discontent, but was willing to plod on in the way his father had gone before him. Filial affection, however, did not so far engross him as to prevent his casting admiring glances on the lovely Katrine, daughter of old Rauchen, the miller; and no wonder, for she was as fascinating a damsel as ever dazzled and perplexed a bashful lover. She had admiration enough, for to see her was to love her; many of the village youngsters had looked unutterable things as they met her at May-feasts and holidays, but up to this time she had received no poetical epistles nor direct proposals, and was as cheerful and heart-free as the birds that sang around her windows. Her father was the traditional guardian of beauty, surly as the mastiff that watched his sacks of flour and his hoard of thalers; and though he doted on his darling Katrine, his heart to all the world beside seemed to be only a chip from one of his old mill-stones. When Carl thought of the severe gray eyes that shot such glances at all lingering youths, the difficulty of winning the pretty heiress seemed to be
