monster in the vital part,-the English boat shrunk back under the warp, the waves were crimsoned with blood, and the American took possession, while the whole bay echoed and reëchoed with repeated shouts of applause.

OC

Our whalemen have brought nautical science to great perfection. The voyage round the southern extremity of Cape Horn has always been represented as a most boisterous one. It was once thought so hazardous, that some national vessels have preferred to be buffeted about in the straits of Magellan, to attempting it. But the great whale fleets are never intimidated, and rarely does an accident cur to damp their ardor. A boat or a spar are the most serious losses they suffer, and their unfailing success, in effecting a passage, has been a subject of wonder to the naval officers of Britain. In the south seas, they have brought to light islands before unknown, and found men who had never before seen a ship, or civilized man, men who exhibited the same savage ferocity, to which so many navigators have fallen victims in the Pacific. On the latest maps and charts we find more than thirty of these islands, and reefs bearing the names of Nantucket captains and merchants. To one is applied the harmonious title of New Nantucket.

Our sealers have been equally adventurous in their explorations. A few years since, two Russian discovery ships came in sight of a group of cold inhospitable islands in the Antarctic ocean. The commander imagined himself a discoverer, and doubtless was prepared, with drawn sword, and with the flag of his sovereign flying over his head, to take possession in the name of the Czar. At this time he was becalmed in a dense fog. Judge of his surprise, when the fog cleared away, to see a little sealing sloop from Connecticut, as quietly riding between his ships, as if lying in the waters of Long Island sound. He learned from the captain, that the isl ands were already well known, and that he had just returned from exploring the shores of a new land at the south; upon which the Russian gave vent to an expression too harsh to be repeated, but sufficiently significant of his opinion of American enterprise. After the captain of the sloop, he named the discovery Palmer's land,' in which the Americans acquiesced, and by this name it appears to be designated on all the recently published Russian and English charts.

A singular fact, connected with the whale and seal fisheries, VOL. XXXVIII.-NO. 82.

15

illustrates the truth that accident, or private and individual enterprise, can often effect more than the most costly expeditions. Many are the voyages that have been undertaken for the purpose of reaching the poles of the earth. It is known, that af ter the disruptions in summer, the vast masses of ice generally drift away from the polar regions. Attempts have been made to thread a passage through the drift ice, and thus reach the pole ; and again the visionary scheme has been devised, of dashing over it with a sledge and reindeer, and thus taking the poles, as it were, by storm. They have all failed; but the English whalers at the north and our sealers at the south, have several times found themselves beyond the ice, where the vast and smooth expanse opened to them, inviting them to explore those unknown and awful mysteries, about which the imaginations of men have for ages been busied.' Captain Scoresby tells us what were his emotions when within 470 miles of the pole. He felt that it was in his power to penetrate those dreary solitudes, unexplored by man, since the fiat of the Almighty brought the universe into existence. He was restrained from the attempt, by the reflection, that his voyage was private, for private ends. That this region is frequently open, is confirmed by the fact, that large numbers of whales come over that part of the globe. Roused to enthusiasm by such reports, a gentleman by the name of Reynolds promised to place his little vessel where she should turn round on the very axis of the earth every twenty-four hours.' For this purpose he thought he had obtained an appropriation from the last administration, but it was vetoed by the present. A private company fitted out the brigs Seraph and Annawan, to aid him in his researches, but the attempt proved as futile as all similar ones. The vessels returned with great loss, and were sold, we believe, under the hammer of the auctioneer.

We have not mentioned one important branch of the whale fishery, the more important, as it threatens to divert the British southern fishery to another part of the earth. The settlers at New South Wales have carried it on for several years with great spirit and success. At the port of Sydney alone, in 1830, sixteen vessels were actually employed, and nine new were building. Their proximity to the most eligible fishing stations enables them to perform three voyages, while the English and Americans perform two. While they reach the grounds in fifty days, the latter are frequently seven months in

ones

performing the passage. The freight of the oil from New Holland to England is estimated at only a tenth of the amount they can realize by being employed in the fishery during the time they would consume in going to and returning from England themselves. The New Hollanders anticipate a monopoly of the trade, and already British ships have gone to engage with them in the fishery, instructed to act upon the principle of shipping their oil homeward and refitting from the colony.

In 1784, the King of France endeavored to give an impulse to the whaling business in his dominions, by fitting out six ships at his own expense. Allured by peculiar immunities, several families from Nantucket settled at Dunkirk. The business increased so rapidly, that forty ships were employed in 1793. With every thing else, this business was suspended and overwhelmed by the Revolution. Most of the Americans returned, and one of the gentlemen settled in New Bedford, where he became opulent by the prosecution of the business from his own country. Under similar inducements, an American gentleman is now deeply engaged in the French whale fishery. The French whale fleet at the present moment may be estimated at forty sail, three fourths of which sail from the port of Havre.

Taking into consideration the ships that sail from the German ports, with the English, French, and American fleets, we shall find that more than 700 ships are engaged in pursuing these mighty inhabitants of the deep. In one part of the world, they have been driven to the deepest recesses of Baffin's Bay, and in another to the very confines of the Pacific. Whether their mammoth bones shall indicate to the untaught natives of the shores they frequent, in some distant century, that such an animal was, or whether, lurking in the inaccessible and undisturbed waters north of Asia and America, the race shall be preserved, is almost a problem. Certain it is that subsistence can never fail, teeming as all waters do, with such profusion of life. That a squadron of 700 vessels scour every sea and bay, in the eager and unremitted pursuit, without exterminating or apparently diminishing the species, leaves us to wonder at the exhaustless resources of

nature.

ART. V.-Last Moments of Eminent Men.

De Euthanasia Medica. Prolusio Academica. Auctore C. F. H. MARX. 4to. Gottingae. 1826.

'LIFE,' says Sir William Temple, 'is like wine; he, who would drink it pure, must not drain it to the dregs.' Lord Byron often talked of death; and never with dread. 'I do not wish,' he would say, 'to live to become old.' The sentiment of the ancient poet, 'that to die young is a boon of heaven to its favorites,' was repeatedly quoted by him, with approbation. The certainty of death he would call the only relief against the burdens of life, which could not be borne, were they not of very limited duration.

But the general sentiment of mankind declares old age to be honored and happy. After an active and successful career, the repose of declining life is serene and cheerful. All men by common consent revere the aged; grey hairs are a crown of glory; the object of respect, but not of envy. The hour of evening is not necessarily overcast; and the aged man, exchanging the pursuits of ambition for the quiet of observation, the strife of public discussion for the diffuse but instructive language of experience, passes to the grave, amidst grateful recollections, and the tranquil enjoyment of satisfied desires.

The happy, it is agreed by all, are afraid to contemplate death; the unhappy, it is often said, look forward to it as a release from suffering. I think of death often,' said a distinguished but dissatisfied man; and I view it as a refuge. There is something calm and soothing to me in the thought of death; and the only time that I feel repugnance to it, is on a fine day, in solitude, in a beautiful country, when all nature seems rejoicing in light and life.'

This is the language of affectation. Man never despises death. Numerous as may be the causes for disgust with life, its end is never contemplated with indifference. Religion may elevate the soul to a sublime reliance on the benefits of a future existence; nothing else can do it. The love of honor may brave danger; the passion of melancholy may indulge in an aversion to continued being; philosophy may resign itself

to death with composure; the sense of shame may conduct to fortitude; yet they, who would disregard death, must turn their thoughts from the consideration of its terrors. It is an instinct of nature to strive to preserve our being; and the instinct cannot be eradicated. The mind may turn away from the contemplation of horrors; it may fortify itself by refusing to observe the extent of impending evil; the instinct of life is still opposed to death; and he, who looks directly at it and professes indifference, is a hypocrite, or is self-deceived. He, that calls boldly upon death, is dismayed on finding him near. The child looks to its parent, as if to discern a glimpse of hope; the oldest are never so old, but they desire life for one day longer; even the infant, as it exhales its breath, springs from its pillow to meet its mother, as if there were help where there is love.

There is a story told of one of the favorite marshals of Napoleon, who, in a battle in the south of Germany, was struck by a cannon ball, and so severely wounded, that there was no hope of a respite. Summoning the surgeon he ordered his wounds to be dressed; and, when help was declared to be unavailing, the dying officer, pushed into a frenzy by the passion for life, burned with vindictive anger against the medical attendant, threatening the heaviest penalties, if his art should bring no relief. The dying man clamorously demanded that Napoleon should be sent for, as one who had power to save; whose words could stop the effusion of blood from his wounds, and awe nature itself into submission. Life expired amidst maledictions heaped upon the innocent surgeon, whose skill was unavailing. This account would have seemed incredible, if we had not had occasion to know a similar case, though in humbler life; a sick man, vowing that he would not die, cursing his physician, who announced the near termination of his life, and insisting that he would live, as if in derision of the laws of nature. To some minds this foolish frenzy appeared like blasphemy; it was but the uncontrolled display of a passion for life; the instinct of self-preservation, exerted in a rough and undisciplined mind.

Even in men of strong religious convictions, the end of life is not always met with serenity; and the moralist and philosopher sometimes express an apprehension, which cannot be pacified. Dr. Johnson was the instructer of his age; his works are full of the effusions of piety, the austere lessons of