«Y O. S. ROUND, ESQ. ^^^^i%\^ 



A WALK ON TFIE SHORE. ( 'W^ 



What the groves and fields are to the villager, the sea- shore is to the 

 dweller on the coast; and although the shadows of the 0112*3 are not of that 

 transparent green that the gaze loves to dwell upon, we have but to turn 

 our eyes aside and we encounter a hue more softly verdant than all the green 

 leaves in the world can supply; indeed I have often looked dispassionately on 

 a serene day at the hue of the ocean, and come to the conclusion that the 

 colour was unrivalled in its transparent brightness. Although the chorus of 

 sweet throats echoes not oti the ear, it would ill befit the scene, which 

 assimilates more properly with the wild cry of the Sea-Mew, or the wail of 

 some lone denizen of that "trackless way" as he wings his solitary flight over 

 the pathless waters. The woods charm us, but such a scene as this awakes 

 a far higher and nobler impulse; and the spirit is carried far, far over the deep 

 blue sea, where there is not a spot of laiid whereon to rest the foot, for the 

 jutting rock, over whose head the foam chafes and boils in eternal fretfulness, 

 is but a land-mark to be flown from and not approached. How often at early 

 mornin;; have I wandered by the edge of the dancing and dashing billows; how 

 have I turned my face with a grateful sense of refreshment to the tossing 

 foam, till the spray had passed over and around me in a silvery and 

 misty cloud. Oh! it was a delicious pastime, it was as a revival after sickness, 

 as a draught to the thirsty, as a meal to the hungi-y, and more, for it was 

 a banquet to the fancy, a something which at once fed the present sense, and 

 laid up store for long and delightful memories, that even now steal over me with 

 a benign influence as I write. Who is there, let me ask, that has not at 

 some time of his life met with such enjoyment, and who does not call it up 

 at will to light up some gloomy fantasy withal; surely it is a wise antidote. 

 To the man of science, there is far more than this to absorb the thoughts: 

 whilst the casual observer may be struck with the grace, or something more 

 of the mighty Grey Gull, as he sails with his hollow wings in the fields of 

 air, or attracted by the smooth-round pebbles that bestrew the beach; there 

 is more, much more which meets his eye, the feathered tenants of air are familiar 

 to him as friends, even at airy distance; he distinguishes with certainty the 

 different species, watches their various manners of flight, their various modes 

 of life with no common interest, and pursues them in his mind's eye to their 

 far off homes in the desert and rocky islet, which itself furnishes its stony 

 treasures. The very sand beneath his feet is strewn with these, and it is a 

 chance if he goes home empty-handed, or uninstructed in some new natural 

 wonder; then look at the briny Avaters, as they leap upon the shores, what 

 wonders they contain — the Zoophyte, the Gorgonia, the Star-fish, the Medusa, 

 the Argonaut, or a hundred more, which people them by day, or illumine 

 them by night. 



It is a wondrous reflection, and lifts our minds far, how far above this lower 



VOL. III. 2 E 



