Down from thy throne thou gazest-and the hills Then come what may, be this my solace still- And midnight rules in darkness. Add to this- Henceforth all murmurs, and repinings cease A THE SMUGGLER. I SPENT the whole of last summer, and a part of the ensuing winter, on the Hampshire coast, visiting successively most of its sea-ports and bathing-places, and enjoying its beautiful diversity of sea and wood scenery, often so intermingled, that the forest-trees dip down their flexile branches into the salt waters of the Solon sea; and green lawns and healthy glades slope down to the edge of the silver sands, and not unfrequently to the very brink of the water. In no part of Hampshire is this characteristic beauty more strikingly exemplified than at the back of the Isle of Wight, that miniature abstract of all that is grand and lovely throughout England. Early in August, I crossed over from Portsmouth to Ryde, purposing to fix my headquarters there, and from thence to make excursions to all such places as are accounted worthy the tourist's notice, But a guide-book is at best an unsympathizing companion, cold and formal as the human machine that leads you over some old abbey, or venerable cathedral, pointing out indeed the principal monuments and chapels, but passing by, unnoticed, a hundred less outwardly distinguished spots, where feeling would love to linger, and sentiment find inexhaustible sources of interest and contemplation. For want of a better, however, I set out with my silent guide, but soon strayed wide of its directions, rambling away, and often tarrying hours and days in places unhonoured by its notice, and perversely deviating from the beaten road, that would have conducted a more docile tourist, and one of less independent tastes, to such or such a nobleman's or gentleman's seat, or summer-house, or pavilion, built on purpose to be visited and admired. But I did not shape my course thus designedly in a spirit of opposition to the mute director, whose (not unser viceable) clue led me at last amongst the romantic rocks and cottages of Shanklin, Niton, and Undercliff. It led me to those enchanting spots and to their lovely vicinity; but to entice me thence, was more than its inviting promises could effect; and finally I took up my abode for an indefinite time in a cottage of grey native stone, backed by the solid rocks, and tapestried in front with such an interwoven profusion of rose and myrtle, as half hid the little casements, and aspired far over the thatched roof and projecting eaves. Days, weeks, months, slipped away imperceptibly in this delicious retreat, and in all the luxury of lounging felicity. Mine was idleness, it is true, the sensation of perfect exemption from all existing necessity of mental or corporeal exertion ;-not suspension of ideas, but rather a season of unbounded liberty for the wild vagrant thought to revel in, to ramble at will beyond the narrow boundaries assigned by the claims of business or society, to her natural excursiveness. Summer passed away-the harvest was gathered in-autumn verged upon winter, and I still tenanted the rock cottage. No where are we so little sensible of the changes of season as in the sea's immediate vicinity; and the back of the Isle of Wight is peculiarly illustrative of this remark. Complete ly screened from the north by a continued wall of high rocky cliff, its shores are exposed only to the southern and westerly winds, and those are tempered by the peculiar softness always perceptible in sea-breezes. On a mild autumn day, or bright winter's morning, when the sun sparkles on the white sands and scintillating waves, on the sails of the little fishing-boats that steal along the shore with their wings spread open, like large butterflies, or on the tall grey cliffs, tinted with many-coloured lichens, a lounger on the beach will hardly perceive that the year is in its "sere and yellow leaf," or already fallen into the decrepitude of winter. And when the unchained elements proclaim aloud that the hoary tyrant hath commenced his reign, when the winds are let loose from their caverns, and the agitated sea rolls its waves in mountainous ridges on the rocky coast, when the sea-fowl's scream is heard mingling in harsh concord with the howling blast; then, oh! then,-who can tear himself from the contemplation of a scene more sublimely interesting than all the calm loveliness of a summer prospect? To me its attractions were irresistible; and besides those of inanimate nature, I found other sources of interest in studying the character and habits of the almost amphibious dwellers on that coast. Generally speaking, there is something peculiarly interesting in the character of seafaring men, even of those whose voyages have extended little beyond their own shores. The fisherman's life indeed may be accounted one of the most constant peril. For daily bread, he must brave daily dangers. In that season when the tillers of the ground rest from their labours-when the artisan and mechanic are sheltered within their dwellings-when the dormouse and the squirrel hide in their woolly nests, and the little birds find shelter in hollow banks and trees, or resort to milder regions, the poor fisherman must encounter all the fury of the combined elements-for his children's bread is scattered on the waters. It is this perpetually enforced intercourse with danger that interests our feelings so powerfully in their behalf, together with its concomitant effects on their character-undaunted hardihood-insurmountable perseverance-almost heroic daring; and, generally speaking, a simplicity of heart, and a tenderness of deportment towards the females and little ones of their families, finely contrasting their rugged exterior. But, unfortunately, it is not only in their ostensible calling of fishermen, that these men are forward in effronting peril. The temptation of contraband trade too often allures them from their honest and peaceable avocations, to brave the laws of their country, and encounter the most fearful risks, in pursuit of precarious, though sometimes considerable gains. Of late, this desperate trade has extended almost to an organized system; and, in spite of all the preventive measures adopted by government, it is too obvious that the numbers of these "free traders" are yearly increasing, and that their hazardous commerce is more daringly and vigorously carried on. Along the Hampshire coast, and more particularly in the Isle of Wight, almost every seafaring man is engaged in it, to a less or greater extent. For the most part, they are connected in secret associations, both for co-operation and defence; and there is a sort of freemasonry among them, the signs and tokens of which are soon apparent to an attentive observer. "The CustomHouse sharks," as they term them, are not their most formidable foes, for they wage a more desperate warfare, (as re cent circumstances have too fatally testified,) with that part of our naval force employed by government on the preventive service. Some of the vessels on the station are perpetually hovering along on the coast; but in spite of their utmost vigilance, immense quantities of contraband goods are almost nightly landed, and no where with more daring frequency than in the Isle of Wight. In my rambles along its shores, the inhabitants of almost every cottage and fisherman's cabin, for many miles round, became known to me. I have always a peculiar pleasure in conversing with these people, in listening with familiar interest (to which they are never insensible) to the details of their feelings and opinions, and of their family concerns. With some of my new acquaintances I had ventured to expostulate on the iniquitous, as well as hazardous nature of their secret traffic, and many wives and mothers sanctioned, with approving looks and half-constrained expressions, my remonstrances to their husbands and sons. These heard for the most part in sullen down-looking silence, (not however expressive of ill-will towards me,) or sometimes answered my arguments with the remark, that "Poor folks must live;" that "half of them, during the war, had earned an honest livelihood in other ways; but now they were turned adrift, and must do something to get bread for their little ones; and, after all, while the rich and great folks were pleased to encourage their trade, it was plain they could not think much harm of those who carried it on. This last was a stinging observation, one of those with which babes and sucklings so often confound the sophistry of worldly wisdom. Amongst these humble families there was one, at whose cabin I stopped oftenest, and lingered longest, in my evening rambles. The little dwelling was wedged in a manner into a cleft of the grey rock, up which, on every slanting ledge, the hand of industry had accumulated garden mould, and fostered a beautiful vegetation; and immediately before it, a patch of the loveliest green sward sloped down to the edge of the sea-sand, enamelled with aromatic wild thyme, and dotted, next the ocean, with tufts of thrift, centaury, and eringo, and with the gold-co loured blossoms of the horn poppy. The peculiar neatness of the little cabin had early attracted my attention, which was further interested by the singular appearance of its owner. He was a large tall man, of about sixty, distinguished in his person by an air of uncommon dignity, and by a dress, the peculiarity of which, together with his commanding carriage, and countenance of bold daring, always suggested the buccaneer of romantic legends to my fancy. He wore large loose trowsers of shaggy dark-blue cloth, a sort of woollen vest, broadly striped with grey, for the most part open at the throat and bosom, and buckled in at the waist with a broad leathern belt, in which two pistols were commonly stuck, and not unfrequently an old cutlass; and over his shoulder was slung a second belt of broad white knitting, to which a powder-flask, a leathern pouch, and often a thick short duck-gun, were suspended. A dark fur cap was the usual covering of his head, and his thick black hair was not so much intermingled with grey, streaked with locks of perfect whiteness. Notwithstanding this formidable equipment, the harmless avocation of a fisherman was his ostensible employment, though, to all appearance, not very zealously pursued; for, in the day-time, he was oftener to be seen lying along the shore in the broad sun, or strolling by the water's edge, or cleaning the lock of his gun, under the shadow of a projecting crag, than busied with the hook and line in his little boat, or mending his nets by the cabin door. At almost all hours of the night, a light was seen burning at the cottage window, and the master of the family, with his son, was invariably absent, if (as was sometimes my custom) I looked in on them after dark, on my return from some distant spot towards my own habitation. as At such an hour I was sure to find the female inmates, (the wife and widowed daughter of the man I have been describing,) in a state of visible perturbation, for which it was easy to assign a cause; but I had remonstrated in vain with the infatuated husband, and it was still more fruitless to argue with the helpless women. Richard Campbell was not a native of the Isle of Wight, nor one trained from his youth up to "go down to the sea in ships, and occupy his busi وو ness in great waters.' For many ge- longings, and would not control those nerations, his family had owned and of his child, especially as he had another cultivated a small farm in the North son, a fine promising lad, who took of England; himself had been bred willingly to the business of the farm, up a tiller of the ground, contrary to and already lightened his father's lahis own wishes, for they had pointed bours. The mother grieved sore at from his very cradle to a seafaring parting from her first-born, (what feellife; and all his hours of boyish pas- ings are like those of a mother totime and youthful leisure, were spent ward her first-born?) and the young in the briny element, close to which, Maurice was her most loving and duat the head of a small bay, or inlet, tiful child, and she had reared him stood his paternal farm. Just as he with such anxious tenderness as only had attained his twentieth year, his mothers feel, through the perilous years father died, leaving him (an only child) of a sickly infancy. But the father the inheritor of all his little property, jested with her fears, and entered with and at liberty to follow the bent of his the ardour of a boyish heart into his own inclination. The temptation was son's enterprizing hopes; and at last strong:- Tumultuous wishes, and the youth won from her an unwilling powerful yearnings, were busy in his consent. And when she shook her head heart; but he was "the only son of mournfully to his promises of bringhis mother, and she was a widow." ing rare and beautiful things from He staid to comfort her old age, and foreign parts for her and his little to cultivate his little inheritance, part- sister, coaxed a half smile into her ly influenced perhaps in his decision tearful looks, by concluding with, by his attachment to a pretty blue-And then I will stay quiet with eyed girl, whose sweeter smiles rewarded his filial piety, and whose hand was very shortly its richer recompense. The widowed mother continued to dwell under her son's roof, tended, like Naomi, by a daughter-in-law as loving as Ruth, but happier than the Hebrew matron in the possession of both her children. 66 Many children were born to the young couple, as likely boys and girls as ever the sun shone upon," said the wife of Campbell, from whom, at different times, I gleaned "the simple annals" I am relating. "But God was very good to them. He increased their store with their increasing family, and provided bread for the little mouths that were sent to claim it. She never grudged her labour, and a better nor a kinder husband than she was blessed with, never woman had. To be sure, he had his fancies and particular ways, and when he could steal a holiday, all his delight was to spend it on the bay that was near their farm, (the worse luck) for many an anxious hour had she known even then, when he was out in his little boat shooting wild-fowl in the dark winter's nights. But no harm ever came to him, only their eldest boy, their dear Maurice,' (the mother never named him without a glistening eye) "took after his father's fancy for the sea, and set his heart on being a sailor." And the father called to mind his own youthful you and father, and never want to In this state of mind he eagerly listened to the speculative visions of a few agricultural adventurers, who had embarked their small capital on an American project, and were on the point of quitting their native country to seek wealth, liberty, and independence, in the back settlements of the United States. In an evil hour, Campbell was persuaded to embark his fortunes with those of the self-expatriated emigrants. The tears and entreaties of his wife and children were unavailing to deter him from his rash purpose; and the unhappy mother was torn from the beloved home, where her heart lingered with a thousand tender reminiscences, and most tenaciously in the persuasion, that if her lost child was ever restored to his native country, to the once-happy abode of his parents his first steps would be directed. The ship in which the Campbells were embarked, with their five remaining children, and all their worldly possessions, performed twothirds of her course with prosperous celerity; but as she approached her destined haven, the wind, which had hitherto favoured her, became contrary, and she lost sea-way for many days. At last, a storm, which had been gathering with awfully gradual preparation, burst over her with tremendous fury. Three days and nights she drove before it, but on the fourth her masts and rigging went overboard, and before the wreck could be cut away, a plank in the ship's side was stove in by the floating timbers. In the confusion which had assembled every soul on deck, the leak was not discovered till the water in the hold had gained to a depth of many feet; and though the pump was set to work immediately, and for a time kept going by the almost superhuman exertions of crew and passengers, all was unavailing; and to betake themselves to the boats was the last hurried and desperate resource. Campbell had succeeded in lowering his three youngest children into one of them, already crowded with their fellow-sharers in calamity, and was preparing to send down his eldest son and daughter, and to descend himself with their mother in his arms, when a woman pressing before him with despairing haste, leapt down into the crowded boat, which upset in an instant, and the perishing cry of twenty drowning creatures mingled with the agonizing shriek of parents, husbands, and children, from the deck of the sinking ship. The other boat was yet alongside, and Campbell was at last seated in her with his two surviving children, and their unconscious mother, who had sunk into a state of blessed insensibility, when the drowning screams of her lost little ones rung in her ears. Five-and-twenty persons were wedged in this frail bark, with a cask of water, and a small bag of biscuit. An old sail had been flung down with these scanty stores, which they contrived to hoist on the subsiding of the storm, towards the evening of their first day's commitment in that "forlorn hope," to the wide world of waters. Their compass had been lost in the large boat, and faint indeed were their hopes of ever reaching land, from whence they had no means of computing their distance. But the unsleeping eye of Providence watched over them, and on the fourth day of their melancholy progress, a sail making towards them was descried on the verge of the horizon. It neared, and the ship proved to be a homewardbound West India trader, into which the perishing adventurers were received with prompt humanity; and on her reaching her appointed haven, (Portsmouth) Campbell, with his companions in misfortune, and the remnant of his once-flourishing family, once more set foot on British earth, He had saved about his person a small part of his little property; but the whole residue was insufficient to equip them for a second attempt, had he even been so obstinately bent on the prosecution of his trans-Atlantic scheme as to persist in it against (what appeared to him) the declared will of the Almighty. Once, in his younger days, he had visited the Isle of Wight, and the remembrance of its stone cottages, and beautiful bays, was yet fresh in his mind. He crossed over with his family, and a few weeks put him in possession of a neat cabin and small fishing-boat; and for a time the little family was subsisted in frugal comfort by the united industry of the father and son. Soon after their settlement in the island, their daughter (matured to lovely womanhood) married a respectable and enterprizing young man, the owner of a pilot vessel. In the course of three years, she brought her husband as many children, and during that time all went well with them; but her William's occupation, a lucrative one in time of war, exposed him |