427 



" et praeterea nihil" may rage elsewhere, if they will ; but with 

 Galignani's consumptive Chronicle to indicate the " whereabout," my 

 "friend and pitcher/' and a contented mind, though exiled from the 

 land I love, yet may I, in this season dear to the Christian world, and 

 dearer to none in it than those who, in our land's language, now 

 haply tell of good and gentle things which have happened heretofore. 

 Fill up your glass, old boy. " The King ; God bless him !" and I 

 warrant me the sentiment is not more truly felt, nor more honestly 

 expressed, by any on the shores he rules, than in this sequestered 

 nook surrounded as we are by forest, flood, and mountain. The 

 glow of patriotism is not likely to lose its force in the land of 

 William Tell, nor the love of country to diminish where each citizen 

 is armed for its defence, and where, with the well warranted pride 

 of a freeman, tenacious of his hard-earned liberty, and conscious of 

 the happiness of his social state as of the unrivalled beauties of his 

 romantic country, each of its sons may not immodestly exclaim, " I, 

 too, am a Swiss, by the grace of God." This was uttered by a noble 

 looking, but weather-beaten old Captain in the Navy. 



" The King ; God bless him !" continued the Veteran. " Few 

 have had better experience of society, in his own and other lands, than 

 William the Fourth. The early hardships of a sailor's life ; the stern 

 discipline of the naval service; the unflattering and uncourteous 

 buffeting of winds and waves ; the equivocal pleasure of the nightly 

 watch ; the scarce dazzling splendour of a short nine to the pound in 

 the un-Crockford-like saloon of a cockpit ; the un- Johnsonian oratory 

 of its inmates ; their glorious defiance of all Brummel's consecrated 

 rule of manners ; hard biscuit, junk, and grog; and all and each 

 on the bleak and ironbound coasts of Nova Scotia, where his Majesty, 

 when a midshipman, was some time stationed, come in strange and 

 somewhat ridiculous contrast with the gorgeous magnificence of 

 Windsor Castle the pomp of royal festival the proud solemnities of 

 regal state and the high duties of the kingly office : in the midst of 

 which, the sovereign of earth's mightiest empire may oft recal to 

 mind the pinching frost of an American winter the rude Micomac 

 in his light canoe the joyous course of the sleigh on the snow and 

 the many pranks of the once light-hearted middy, which were 

 effected with singular science, to the somewhat bewilderment of the 

 honest and simple Acadians." 



" Have you ever visited that blissful region of fog, codfish, bears, 

 and breakers?" inquired a Major of the 92d. 



" Yes ; in my yearly youth, and some years subsequently to Prince 

 William Henry's quitting the station ; and it was surely then one of 

 the least attractive spots in his royal father's dominions. The natural 

 severity of the climate, and the lengthened Nova Scotia winter, were 

 then unmitigated by extensive cultivation of the earth. The 

 naval squadron wintered generally at Bermuda ; but often, at the 

 approach of autumn, and to the calendar's infinite confusion, while it 

 was yet high summer in England, a delicious north-wester would 

 suddenly succeed to a warm rain, like my Lord Chancellor's keen 

 and cutting commentary on the ardent representations of a certain 

 gallant peer, and the shrouds and tackling of the ships in harbour 



