160 GLAUCUS; OE, 



of danger and sorrow, as well as many a shrewd 

 practical maxim, and often, too, a living recognition 

 of God, and the providence of God, which will send 

 you home, perhaps, a wiser and more genial man. 

 And when the trawl is hauled, wait till the fish are 

 counted out, and packed away, and then kneel down 

 and inspect (in a pair of Mackintosh leggings, and 

 your oldest coat) the crawling heap of shells and 

 zoophytes, which remains behind about the decks, 

 and you will find, if a landsman, enough to occupy 

 you for a week to come. Nay, even if it be too calm 

 for trawling, condescend to go out in a dingy, and 

 help to haul some honest fellow's deep-sea lines and 

 lobster-pots, and you ^vill find more and stranger 

 things about them than even fish or lobsters : though 

 they, to him who has eyes to see, are strange enough. 

 I speak from experience ; for it was but the other 

 day that, in the north of Devon, I found sermons, not 

 indeed in stones, but in a creature reputed among the 

 most worthless of sea-vermin. I had been lounging 

 about all the morning on the little pier, waiting, with 

 the rest of the village, for a trawling breeze which 



