CHAPTER XII. 1861, ÆT. 20—.

Letters XXIII. and XXIV.: A Mournful Parting; Dubin Bay; Wicklow Coast; A Gale off Land's End; Falmouth; Coast of Cornwall; Plymouth, &c. &c.-A Gale off the Channel Islands.—In Jersey again.-Painful Contrasts.— Letter XXV.: A Dismal Prospect; Gloomy Reflections. - Letter XXVI.: Study of Burke.-Health completely reëstablished.-Letter XXVII. : Hope Revived.—Catastrophe averted.—Brightening Prospects.—Letter XXVIII. : Jersey Coast-Scenes.-Letter XXIX.: Death of the Prince Consort; Change in Literary Tastes.- Work done in 1861.

OUT, as I have said, he wrote with an apparently light heart to his friends; and the pleasure of travel, and the elation imparted by the gales which he encountered on his way, yielded him a momentary respite; and the following extracts from his letters give a gay narrative of his journey in his own words :

LETTERS XXIII. and XXIV.-"Jersey, October, 1861.... We left that gloomy Limbo, the port of Dublin, in the Leda screw-steamer, on some day towards the end of last month [September]. The sea was rough and furrowed with 'white-horses' even inside the wild, romantic bay, as it had blown a heavy equinoctial gale the preceding night. We bade

adieu to our friend G***** B******* just before the steamer left her moorings among the dark mastforests of the port. We watched him with straining eyes till he was lost among the crowds of porters and cabmen that throng the North-Wall; and when we could see him no more, a sense of desolation came upon us and depressed us in a manner that I cannot describe. We looked up to the grand, sombre mountains that frown majestically over the plain, the city, and the darkling bay, and with a pang of keen agony we recalled the happy days we have spent among those wild glens, bare peaks, gloomy tarns, and solemn woods, with the friend of our childhood and of our ripening youth, now perhaps separated from us for ever. The beauty of Dublin Bay is no doubt grossly exaggerated by those patriotic enthusiasts who compare it [conventionally] with the Bay of Naples. Anybody possessed of the slightest discernment will at once perceive that it is not less absurd to institute a comparison between the rich cerulean colours, the eternal sunshine, the splendid orange-groves and statues of Naples, and the gloom, the sternness, the melancholy grandeur of Dublin Bay, than it would be to compare a Spanish Boy of Murillo with a Brigand Chiet of Salvator Rosa. But there is an inexpressible charm about the fantastic and weird outlines of the Wicklow Mountains, the dark-green waters of the seldom tranquil Channel, the rugged brown steeps

of Howth, Lambay, and Ireland's Eye, and the bleak, far-stretching expanse of plain, in the midst of which rise the time-worn towers and steeples of the city of the Black River. A pervading sense of melancholy is the genius loci; and on a gloomy day one might fancy, when sailing out to sea, that he was being borne across the murky Styx in the skiff of Charon to the regions of eternal night.

"We passed rapidly by the magnificent coast of Wicklow, and amused ourselves by recounting the unnumbered [incidents] of by-gone happiness that every well-known peak, or valley, or mountain-glen suggested to our memories. And here, if I had time I would borrow a leaf from 'Yorick,' as I to spare, have much to say about those dear old hills, and the sweet thoughts which the contemplation or the remembrance of them evokes in me. But I cannot write a 'Sentimental Journey' just now. . .

"As we sailed beside the bold coast of Wexford, the night began to approach, and the storm gradually rose to what might without exaggeration be We soon turned in for the termed a tempest. night, and were rocked to sleep. . . . .

"Next morning, at about six o'clock, we both awoke simultaneously, and found ourselves rolling over one another on the floor like porpoises. We immediately scrambled on deck, as best we could. ... We were in the Atlantic, and it was a stormon the borders of the Atlantic, in the midst of a

terrific gale! Dim, cold, and dreary, like the shadow of a spectre under a midnight moon, rose the crags of the Cornish shores on our left; and on every other side stretched the boundless ocean, rolling in huge cataracts of dark-green waters, and spouting in the misty air torrents of spray. Our vessel was tossing like a cork upon the giant waves, which broke against her prow from time to time, covering her decks from stem to stern with sheets of seething foam. We found it quite impossible to keep our feet. rolled about the deck like an empty cask, and at last was obliged to grasp at a rope's end with all the accumulated energies of his frame. I staggered into the cook's room and sat cheek-by-jowl with the man of pots and pans; lit my cigar, and smoked away like an Epicurean deity; while the cook entertained me with a stupid yarn about an old woman and a jackass-when, suddenly the ship gave a tremendous lurch, and a topper came dashing right across decks, breaking into the cook's room and sousing him and me, while it fizzed and bubbled and steamed among the hot pots and pans, dislodged me from my comfortable seat, and precipitated the ancient cook right in my face, thereby annihilating my cigar completely. . . .

"... The Lizard projects in a southerly direction as one of the horns of Mount's Bay. It is surmounted by a fine lighthouse, which rises like

alabaster from the 'killas,' or slaty soil, for which the Lizard district is famous. En passant, I may observe that the name 'Lizard Point' has no reference whatever to the beautiful reptiles which we have amused ourselves by disturbing from their repose on the sunny slopes of Noirmont or Val des Vaux. On the opposite coast of Brittany there is a corresponding point called 'Lézardrieux.' On both this and Lizard Point, says Mr. Jephson, in his work on Bretagne, are found a great number of rope-walks and rope-makers. In the Middle Age the trade of rope-making used to be exclusively carried on by lepers, who were only permitted to ply their trade in solitude. Lepers used to be called 'Lazars,' from Lazarus, the beggar whom Dives maltreated. Hence Lézardrieux and Lizard or Lazar's Point. While we were doubling the point we got a fearful tossing, but on coming round by Hell Mouth and Black Head we were in comparatively smooth water. The coast here is very bold, and the waves, leaping up the sombre crags and pouring in white cascades down their dark fissures, together with the red glare of the slanting sun upon the foam, produced a magnificent effect. It was half-past five o'clock when the Leda steamed round the headland which is crowned by Pendennis Castle, and turned into the entrance to Falmouth Sound. We were ravenously hungry, in consequence of the sea-air, and the impossibility of breakfasting