the bulwarks with an irresistible force. At the same moment, he cast the fast of the boat from the pin that held it, and, lifting his broad hands high into the air, his voice was heard in the tempest. "God's will be done with me!" he cried. "I saw the first timber of the Ariel laid, and shall live just long enough to see it turn out of her bottom; after which I wish to live no longer." But his shipmates were swept far beyond the sounds of his voice before half these words were uttered. All command of the boat was rendered impossible, by the numbers it contained, as well as the raging of the surf; and, as it rose on the white crest of a wave, Tom saw his beloved little craft for the last time: it fell into a trough of the sea, and in a few moments more its fragments were ground into splinters on the adjacent rocks. The cockswain still remained where he had cast off the rope, and beheld the numerous heads and arms that appeared rising, at short intervals, on the waves; some making powerful and well-directed efforts to gain the sands, that were becoming visible as the tide fell, and others wildly tossed in the frantic movements of helpless despair. The honest old seaman gave a cry of joy, as he saw Barnstable issue from the surf, bearing the form of Merry in safety to the sands, where, one by one, several seamen soon appeared also, dripping and exhausted. Many others of the crew were carried, in a similar manner, to places of safety; though, as Tom returned to his seat on the bowsprit, he could not conceal from his reluctant, eyes the lifeless forms that were, in other spots, driven against the rocks, with a fury that soon left them but few of the outward vestiges of humanity. Dillon and the cockswain were now the sole occupants of their dreadful station. The former stood, in a kind of stupid despair, a witness of the scene we have related; but, as his curdled blood began again to flow more warmly through his heart, he crept close to the side of Tom, with that sort of selfish feeling that makes even hopeless misery more tolerable, when endured in participation with another. "When the tide falls," he said, in a voice that betrayed the agony of fear, though his words expressed the renewal of hope, "we shall be able to walk to land." "There was One, and only One, to whose feet the waters were the same as a dry deck," returned the cockswain; "and none but such as have this power will ever be able to walk from these rocks to the sands." The old seaman paused, and, turning his eyes, which exhibited a mingled expression of disgust and compassion, on his companion, he added, with reverence, "Had you thought more of him in fair weather, your case would be less to be pitied in this tempest!" "Do you still think there is much danger?" asked Dillon. "To them that have reason to fear death. hear that hollow noise beneath ye?" "'Tis the wind driving by the vessel." Listen! Do you ""Tis the poor thing herself," said the affected cockswain, "giving her last groans. The water is breaking up her decks, and, in a few minutes more, the handsomest model that ever cut a wave will be like the chips that fell from her timbers in framing!" "Why, then, did you remain here?" cried Dillon, wildly. "To die in my coffin, if it should be the will of God," returned Tom. "These waves to me are what the land is to you: I was born on them, and I have always meant that they should be my grave." "But I-I," shrieked Dillon, "I am not ready to die!—I cannot die!-I will not die!" "Poor wretch!" muttered his companion, "you must go, like the rest of us when the death-watch is called, none can skulk from the muster." "I can swim," Dillon continued, rushing with frantic eagerness to the side of the wreck. "Is there no billet of wood, no rope, that I can take with me?" "None: every thing has been cut away, or carried off by the sea. If ye are about to strive for your life, take with ye a stout heart and a clean conscience, and trust the rest to God!" "God!" echoed Dillon, in the madness of his frenzy: “I know no God! there is no God that knows me !" "Peace!" said the deep tones of the cockswain, in a voice that seemed to speak in the elements; "blasphemer, peace!" The heavy groaning, produced by the water, in the timbers of the Ariel, at that moment, added its impulse to the raging feelings of Dillon, and he cast himself headlong into the sea. The water, thrown by the rolling of the surf on the beach, was necessarily returned to the ocean, in eddies, in different places, favorable to such an action of the element. Into the edge of one of these counter-currents, that was produced by the very rocks on which the schooner lay, and which the watermen call the "undertow," Dillon had, unknowingly, thrown his person; and when the waves had driven him a short distance from the wreck, he was met by a stream that his most desperate efforts could not overcome. He was a light and powerful swimmer, and the struggle was hard and protracted. With the shore immediately before his eyes, and at no great distance, he was led, as by a false phantom, to continue his efforts, although they did not advance him a foot. The old seaman, who, at first, had watched his motions with careless indifference, understood the danger of his situation at a glance; and, forgetful of his own fate, he shouted aloud, in a voice that was driven over the struggling victim, to the ears of his shipmates on the sands,— "Sheer to port, and clear the under-tow! sheer to the southward!" Dillon heard the sounds, but his faculties were too much obscured by terror to distinguish their object; he, however, blindly yielded to the call, and gradually changed his direction, until his face was once more turned towards the vessel. The current swept him diagonally by the rocks, and he was forced into an eddy, where he had nothing to contend against but the waves, whose violence was much broken by the wreck. In this state he con tinued still to struggle, but with a force that was too much weakened to overcome the resistance he met. Tom looked around him for a rope, but not one presented itself to his hands: all had gone over with the spars, or been swept away by the waves. At this moment of disappointment, his eyes met those of the desperate Dillon. Calm, and inured to horrors, as was the veteran seaman, he involuntarily passed his hand before his brow, as if to exclude the look of despair he encountered; and when, a moment afterwards, he removed the rigid member, he beheld the sinking form of the victim, as it gradually settled in the ocean, still struggling, with regular but impotent strokes of the arms and feet, to gain the wreck, and to preserve an existence that had been so much abused in its hour of allotted probation. "He will soon know his God, and learn that his God knows him!" murmured the cockswain to himself. As he yet spoke, the wreck of the Ariel yielded to an overwhelming sea, and, after a universal shudder, her timbers and planks gave way, and were swept towards the cliffs, bearing the body of the simple-hearted cockswain among the ruins. JAMES A. HILLHOUSE, 1789-1841. "Hillhouse, whose music, like his themes, Echoed from harps of seraphim By bards that drank at Zion's fountains The feet of angel-messengers."-HALLECK. THE Hillhouse family held a high social position in Derry, Ireland, and one of the members emigrated to America and settled in Connecticut in 1720. The father of the poet, Hon. James Hillhouse, who died in 1833, filled various offices in his native State, and was for many years a leading member of Congress. The subject of the present sketch was born in New Haven, on the 26th of September, 1789. At the age of fifteen, he entered Yale College, and graduated in 1808, with a high reputation for scholarship. At the Commencement of 1812, he delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society a descriptive poem, entitled The Judgment, which gained him high reputation. It is in the form of a “vision," and is designed to represent the fearful events of the great day of final retribution.' In 1820, he published Percy's Masque, a Drama in Five Acts, founded upon the ballad of "The Hermit of Warkworth," by Bishop Percy. In 1822, he was married to Cornelia Lawrence, daughter of Isaac Lawrence, Esq., of New York, and took up his residence in New Haven, at "Sachem's Wood," the name of his beautiful seat, occupied with the pursuits of a man of taste and fortune. During the year 1824, Hadad, a Dramatic Poem, was written, and the next year was committed to the press. It is based upon the belief in a former intercourse between mankind and the good and evil beings of the spiritual world, and the scene is laid in Judea, in the time of King David. Hadad, a Syrian prince, is in Jerusalem, and falls in love with Tamar, the sister of Absalom; but she will give no encouragement to him unless he renounce his heathenism and conform to the Jewish worship. This is generally considered the most finished of his productions. In 1839, he published, in Boston, in two volumes, all the abovementioned poems, with Demetria, a Tragedy in Five Acts, founded on an Italian tale of love, jealousy, and revenge; and Sachem's Wood, together with several orations which he had delivered on public occasions. For some time previous to this, the health of Mr. Hillhouse had been failing. and in the autumn of 1840 he left home, for the last time, to visit his friends in Boston. He returned somewhat benefited; but, on the second day of the following January, his disorder assumed an alarming form, which terminated fatally on the evening of the fourth of that month.3 SCENE FROM HADAD. The garden of ABSALOM's house on Mount Zion, near the palace, overlooking the city. TAMAR sitting by a fountain. [Enter HADAD.] Had. Delicious to behold the world at rest. Meek Labor wipes his brow, and intermits The curse, to clasp the younglings of his cot; Herdsmen and shepherds fold their flocks—and, hark! What merry strains they send from Olivet! The jar of life is still; the city speaks "In Hadad and The Judgment his scriptural erudition and deep perceptions of the Jewish character, and his sense of religious truth, are evinced in the most carefully-finished and nobly-conceived writings."-H. T. TUCKERMAN. 2 Hillhouse's dramatic and other pieces are the first instances, in this country, of artistic skill in the higher and more elaborate spheres of poetic writing. He possessed the scholarship, the leisure, the dignity of taste, and the noble sympathy requisite thus to build the lofty rhyme;' and his volumes, though unattraetive to the mass of readers, have a permanent interest and value to the refined, the aspiring, and the disciplined mind."-H. T. TUCKERMAN. 3 Read criticisms upon his writings in the North American Review," January, 1826, by F. W. P. Greenwood, and January, 1840, by John G. Palfrey; also, the leading article in the "New Englander," November, 1858, by H. T. Tuckerman. In gentle murmurs; voices chime with lutes And nature, breathing dew and fragrance, yields Tam. Ah, Hadad, meanest thou to reproach the Friend Who gave so much, because he gave not all? Had. Perfect benevolence, methinks, had will'd With pleasure, like a flowing spring of life. Tam. Our Prophet teaches so, till man rebell'd. Defensive volley'd from the throne; this, this Tam. Ah! talk not thus. Had. Is this benevolence? Nay, loveliest, these things sometimes trouble me; Our Syrians deem each lucid fount, and stream, Of man, a spiritual race, allied To him by many sympathies, who seek His happiness, inspire him with gay thoughts, Cool with their waves, and fan him with their airs. O'er them, the Spirit of the Universe, Or Soul of Nature, circumfuses all With mild, benevolent, and sunlike radiance; As spirit does the body, till green herbs, And beauteous flowers, and branchy cedars rise; Had. These deities They invocate with cheerful, gentle rites, Hang garlands on their altars, heap their shrines Not like yon gory mount that ever reeks Tam. Cast not reproach upon the holy altar. Had. Nay, sweet.-Having enjoy'd all pleasures here That Nature prompts, but chiefly blissful love, |