26? 



counterpart of it by Mr. Clarke, in a note to his beautiful edition 

 of Falconer's Shipwreck, a work in which the noble spirit of 

 poetry, the uncommon naval erudition, the subject itself untrod, 

 and intractable as it should seem to numbers, the tender sympathy 

 of wounded friendship and separated love, all conspire to rank 

 the author high in the list of fame, and to draw the tear of sensi- 

 bility from the compassionate reader. Much as the poem itself 

 deserves encomium, the language of his commentator must be 

 allowed to possess all the warmth and energy of orientalism in the 

 description of the storm to which I allude. 



" We were cruizing off Ushant, in the Impetueua, during an 

 evening at the close of October, and the dreary coast so continu- 

 ally present to our view, created a painful uniformity, which could 

 only be relieved by observing the variations of the expanse that 

 was before us. The sun had just given its parting rays, and the 

 last shades of day lingered on the distant waves, when a sky most 

 sublime and threatening, attracted all our attention, and was im- 

 mediately provided against by the vigilant officers of the watch. 

 To the verge of the horizon, except where the sun had left some 

 portion of its departing rays, a hard, lowering, blue firmament 

 presented itself; on this floated light yellow clouds, tinged with 

 various hues of crimson, the never-failing harbingers of a gale. A 

 strong vivid tint was reflected from them on the sails and rigging 

 of the ship, which rendered the scene more dreadful. The very 

 calm that prevailed was portentous — the sea-bird shrieked as it 

 passed! As the tempest gradually approached, and the winds 

 issued from the treasuries of God, the thick darkness of an autum- 

 nal night closed the whole in horrid uncertainty." 



