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of the first settlers of Nantucket not only supplied this continent with oil before the revolution, but they exported large quantities to England and France. In the latter country, they were the first to introduce it into use, being obliged to create a demand, in order to meet it. It is related, in an authentic history, that some persons standing on a high hill on the island, watching the whales spouting and sporting with each other, one said: There,' pointing to the sea, ' is a green pasture, where our children's grand-children will go for bread.' The prophecy has been literally fulfilled.

Although all men are gregarious, and above all, civilized men, yet in proportion as they become civilized, they strive to appear other than what they are, by affecting to live apart from their own species. It is to this feeling that country-seats and watering-places owe their existence. And although men pretend to wish to be very exclusive in their retreats from what they call the bustle of the great world, yet they are very certain to go, on such occasions, where there is the greatest probability of finding the greatest crowd; so impossible is it for men to sin against their own natures. The simple inhabitants of Nantucket, although differing essentially from the rest of mankind in many particulars, partook of this common foible with the rest. As they grew rich and refined, they felt the want of a summer retreat; and in process of time, there were clustered together, on the eastern end of the island, sixty or seventy little houses, standing on the edge of a high cliff, with the waves of the Atlantic constantly dashing against its base.

This was SIASCONSET. But how unlike all other summer retreats and watering-places! It rises in the midst of ocean, with neither a green tree nor a towering rock to divide the attention, or to entice the eye from contemplating the grandeur of the wild waste of waters spread out around it. The hoarse roar of the breakers continually dashing against the shore, makes a nobler symphony than was ever heard within the walls of a cathedral, and awakening within the soul a vague feeling of sublimity, rebukes and puts to flight all mean and trivial thoughts. One of those wooden gimcracks, with its Grecian porticoes and Venetian blinds, that disfigure all other places of summer resort in the twenty-four states, would look like an impertinence here; and luckily no enterprising individual has yet seen proper to build such an incubus upon the fair fame of Siasconset. The little houses that are ranged along the cliff, with a green avenue running between them, are the most modest and unpretending edifices that civilized men ever reared for their accommodation. And here may be seen and felt all those gentle graces which adorn and distinguish cultivated minds, without any of those external affectations and incumbrances, which accompany them in other places. Pride and luxury are exotics, that cannot take root where there is so little of the blandishments of Nature, or the achievements of art, to distract the mind from the contemplation of its Maker. And here, by common consent, men and women throw aside all useless restraints and cold formalities, and intermingle with each other like brethren appointed to one common lot, and who are joint heirs to one heritage. Fashion here loses her sway, and even women cease to acknowledge her as their sovereign. That foul demon, the SPIRIT OF PARTY, has never yet

shed his baneful influences over Siasconset, and strait-coated Sectarianism has never approached within sound of its breakers. The tinkling of a piano has never been heard within its borders, and the hissing of steam has never marred the hoarse melody of its waters. But the hilarious music of happy hearts is often heard there, and the gentle whispers of heart-subduing voices. And too often the thrilling cry of drowning wretches has been borne on the midnight blast; for many noble ships have been wrecked upon its rips, without one soul being left to tell the story of their disaster. And the shore has not unfrequently been lined with costly goods, and lifeless bodies, while the vessel that once bore them has been entirely beaten to pieces and swallowed up in a night. And once the waters around were crimsoned with human blood, and the echoes of the solitary cliffs were awakened by sounds never heard there before; the clashing of swords, the reports of cannon, and the fierce cry of men engaged in mortal combat. It was near the close of the last war, when the privateer Neufchatel, lying within a very short distance of the shore, was attacked by the boats of the Endymion frigate. Of one hundred and forty men, including the first lieutenant of the ship, that manned the barges, only fourteen returned alive.

But the chief glory of Siasconset, and what serves to embalm it in the memories of all those who visit it, is neither its solitary grandeur, its unique customs, nor the charms of its society, but its fish. To appreciate them, they must be eaten. To describe an elegant woman, a beautiful picture, or a fine landscape, would be an easy task; but to give a correct idea of a 'soused chowder,' would baffle the readiest pen, or the warmest imagination. No doubt many lovers of good things would think it a lucky chance if they could sip a cup of young hyson with the moon's first cousin, his highness of china; or sup with an unbreeched Gaucho, in the Banda Oriental, off a Pampa bull roasted whole, and undivested of his hide and horns; or breakfast at Mackinac on a lake trout, which they had watched dying and broiling upon the hot embers in an Indian wigwam; or to dine at the Rocher de Cancale, on turbot à la créme; or they may have feasted in imagination with Didius Julianus, or with Varius Heliogabalus on shrimps and sausages, cooked according to the receipt of the latter emperor; or have partaken of one of the men-fed fish from the pond of Vedius Pollio, at a déjeunner à la fourchette; or have eaten cow-heel in their dreams with Glaucus Lorrensis; I am persuaded that no one who has ever eaten fried tongues and 'sounds' at Siasconset, can ever long for any other dish, unless it be a codfish chowder, served up at the same place. Indeed, if one were called upon to decide between the two dishes, he would be placed in a most puzzling predicament; it would be like asking a mother which of her children she would be willing to give up. They pretend to make chowder in other parts of the Bay State; and I have tasted a villanous compound, even on the sea-coast of New-Hampshire and Maine, that was dignified by the name; but it was an insult to the noblest of the finny tribe to serve one of them up in such style. Every body has read, or heard, of the tragic end of the illustrious Vatel, who ran himself through the body with his sword, because the sea-fish that he expected to serve up for the dinner of his royal master did not arrive in season. And

doubtless many thoughtless people have looked upon the too sensitive cook as a fool, or at best as having fallen a sacrifice to a false principle of honor. But I could never look upon the martyrdom of the unfortunate Frenchman in such a light. Taking it for granted that the fish he expected was a cod, and that the dish he intended to make of it was chowder, I do not see that any other method of expressing his chagrin could have been adequate to the occasion. He certainly did right to fall upon his sword. But how melancholy to reflect, that while the heroic artist was breathing his last breath, whole cart loads of marée were arriving from every sea-port in France, whence he had ordered it for fear of disappointment. His feelings were no doubt well understood and appreciated by his royal master; for Madame Sévigné, in her letter to Madame Grignan, says he was much praised, and his courage was lauded as well as blamed.

There are other kinds of fish, beside cod, caught at Siasconset; but the sojourners at that fascinating spot, like the emperor Geta, have their fish served up in alphabetical order; and it so happens that they never get beyond the third letter. It would literally be descending too far, to go below G. The chromatic scale of their culinary conceptions cannot go beyond cod. But the charmed circle of their appetite is by no means a narrow one. First comes chowder, then fried tongues and sounds, then fried cheeks, next corned cod, then boiled sounds, and lastly dried cod. Who would ever wish to leave such a round of enjoyment! What were the lampreys of Julius Cæsar, compared with the cod-fish of Siasconset!

These delightful fish are taken with hook and line in boats, peculiarly constructed for riding on the breakers, about a mile from the shore. It requires great skill and address to land the boats safely on the beach; and it frequently happens that they are swamped in the attempt, and the fruits of a day's labor and peril are lost. But so accustomed are the fishermen to diving in the surf, that it rarely happens that one of them is drowned. In landing, as soon as the boat touches the shore, the crew leap out, and catching her by the gunwales, drag her up high and dry out of the reach of the returning breaker. The fish are immediately thrown out upon the beach, when some bare-footed urchin, or bare-armed damsel, without question or hindrance, claps an eye and a hand upon the largest and finest looking one of the fare, and darts up the steep 'bank with surprising alacrity. The fish is cleaned and thrust into the pot which has been hanging over the fire, with its pork and onions all in readiness, in an incredible short space of time; and if you are a looker-on, you begin to feel longings within you that would be wholly insupportable, were it not for the prospect of their speedy gratification. The keen bracing air; the pure limpid water; the exercise upon the beach; the simple joyousness of all around you; all tend to whet up the appetite to such a degree, that you feel that the coarsest food would be eaten with the liveliest zest imaginable; but when the additional stimulus of the aroma arising from a pot of chowder is given, your appetite becomes a phrenzy, and you seize a spoon and abandon your self to the gratification of your desires, with a recklessness and utter regardlessness of the whole world, and every thing it contains, except the tureen before you, which you can never feel at any other

place, nor upon any other occasion. When you leave Siasconset, it is with regret it becomes petrified in your memory; and although you may have travelled the world over, you never forget that you have been there; and when you are asked whether you have or not, you promptly reply, yes,' and add that you mean to go there again.

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BY H. T. TUCKERMAN, ESQ., AUTHOR OF THE ITALIAN SKETCH-BOOK.'

WITH What a calm and hopeful grace come forth

The starry emblems of supernal love

Into the dusky sky! So have our years

Been shorn of darkness by the gems of good

In being's firmament so richly set,

By the same hand that led us forth at first

To tread earth's solemn shore: upon that strand

Surges of grief, with melancholy roar,

Will sometimes beat, but only to subside

Into a pensive murmur, soothing oft

Our troubled breasts with dreams of that blest sphere,

Where, like a peaceful lake, whose crystal depths

E'er image lovely things, life's tide expands,

Tranquil and bright, beneath the smile of God.

Now that the last breeze of another year
Thus sighs itself away, awake my soul!
And garner up the pleasant memories
That smile upon thee from departed days;
Ere these redeemers of the Past grow dim,
Throw on its tomb a wreath: Remember now
How oft night's beauteous queen has solaced thee,
When, on the ocean-waste, her beams have spread
A silver pathway for the barque of Hope
To float serenely into coming time!
How did thy baser passions melt away

In those soft, tranquil nights! What calm divine
Through all thy powers in subtle beauty spread!
What solemn raptures stirred thy silent depths!
What visions of the beautiful arose!
What passionate resolves to follow truth,
Obey the inward law; with boundless love,
Firm trust, and conscious joy, to take thy way
Through the mysterious destinies of earth,
Free and untroubled as a happy child!

Revoke the ravishments of music born,
Rich in emotions tender and profound,
When on a sea of melody thou lay,
Swept with a thrilling freedom, or upborne,
Oblivious of time, as some high strain
Imparadised thee with its melting spell,

And rendered consciousness intense and sweet.

Conjure from by-gone hours the sacred thoughts
That came to thee at twilight, as the west

Mantled the aged hills with pearly light,

And sent rich scintillations up the sky,
Like paths of amber; amethystine waves,

Or roseate streams through azure meadows rolled,
Emblazoned with a solar heraldry;

Commingling all within the purple mists,
Which, like the floating robes of seraphs, play
Round the departing sun! Renew once more

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The charm that lured thee, as thou loitered far
Into the mazes of that verdant lore,

That like a primal forest of the east,

Spreads its o'erladen branches many a league,
While flowers of every hue beneath are strewn,
Sending for ever through the solemn air
Incense the breath of ages cannot waste!

What though the world is cold, so thou canst steal
From its stern throng, and mid the orange-groves
Of fair Verona, in the moonlight, hear

Juliet's deep vows, fresh from her virgin soul,
Stir the awed night-breeze, like the mystic tones
Of spheral music from some new-born star?
Or stand beside the musing Dane, to note
His thoughtful soul's deep strivings with itself?
Think of the noble women thou hast known,
Upon whose lovely brows high grace reposed,
Within whose eyes the dew of tenderness
From love's unfathomable deep welled up-
Confirming faith in heaven; whose tones of truth
All affluent in hope, melodious breathed
More eloquent responses to the plea
For an immortal fate, than all the force
Proud reason ever marshalled to adorn
Doubt's desert plain with potent argument.

Recall those moments whose concentrate span
Outvalues common years, when thou didst break
From thy poor thrall of dust, as if thou felt
The scope of an immortal flight were thine,
And rose through love's celestial atmosphere,
Buoyant with gladness, to the gate of heaven!
Amid those blissful dreams, how paled afar
The star of glory, like an earthly lamp
At the first outbreak of the god of day!
Ah! then thou didst forswear most earnestly
Ambition's weary race; the thirst for gold
Died with disdain, as manhood's mind contemns
The toys of infancy; each selfish aim,
The sophistry of rank, pleasure's gay badge,
And all the means and purposes of life,
Dwindled to mocking trifles, as the waves
Of a new-born affection proudly swelled,
With a rich music and far-spreading sweep,
Before which all the sounds of earth grew faint,
And former prospects sunk to littleness.

Such are the mysteries that circle life!
To think yet with unsatisfied desire,
Sit in the temple-porch of knowledge still,
Forbidden by our clay habiliments
From rushing to the open arms of Truth,
To lay our aching brows upon her breast;

To love-yet at affection's banquet glean

Mere crumbs of nourishment, while our strong hearts
Are shaping ever an ideal love,

And thirsting for a sympathy of soul

Which angels only know.

Yet thank the Giver of each perfect gift,

For the perception and the pledge divine;

Treasure the better moments thou hast known,

When, with volcanic force, the light of thought
Shed a celestial splendor o'er the world,

Or love, forgetful of its earthly fate,

Seemed momently to know the deathless joy
Awaiting it above; a grateful hope
Shall thus the elements of time subdue,
And harmonize the soul with filial trust.

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