conspicuous. And accordingly, (for a great poet is potentially a great painter, too,) when we look back to the first stanza, we find that it is in that season when "the chestnut patters to the ground." as, but no more than, the reserve of passing As to painters, I really do not remember ever seeing a sea-piece which I thought The strangest, if not the most delightthoroughly good. Mr. Ruskin's abuse of the Vans and Backs and all their brother ful, sensation which one has about the sea charlatans is only too well merited. is, I think, in childhood. What a field for Claude could paint most exquisite pictures wondering interest in the dawning intelliin which the sea figured prominently; but gence of six or seven years, when it is first it is in his rendering, not of the sea, but of told "you will soon see the sea;" or, "there is the sea!" The sea-what is it, the light upon it that he is so consummate a master. If a mill-pond touched with the who made it, and how? why is it not light of the setting sun were faithfully land? And in spite of parents, nursemaids, painted, the picture would be of incalcula- and governesses, the child feels that there ble value; and so Claude's pictures may be is reason in what it says, and that it is worthy of all the praise bestowed upon asking questions which it is perfectly nathem, and yet not be good as "sea-pieces." tural to ask, but which can not be anTurner's "Fighting Teméraire" is a pic-swered satisfactorily. In my own case, ture absolutely perfect in its way; but then it is only the shallow, smooth, artificial sea of a harbor-the sea emasculated and civilized to suit the ways of men. In Stanfield's "Abandoned," exhibited last year, there was fine feeling and much power in the roll of the surging waves, tossing as easily as children would a ball from one to another the huge, desolate ruin; but is there any picture of Stanfield's, whether of sea or land, which, with all its merits, is not deeply tainted with conventionality, which does not in some sort remind us of the drawing-master and his masterly tree-touches at a guinea an hour? I said that very few people knew any thing about the sea; and in this respect I must at once confess that I am little, if any, better than most of my neighbors; and if I am asked: Why, then, do I write about it? I answer, it is because I know enough, and wish to teach others enough, to show that there is far more of wonder and delight in the sea than is currently supposed, and what a sacred duty it is, not only to our Maker, but to ourselves, to learn more about it. For myself, I feel respecting the sea as a man does about some specially delightful person-a woman, let us say-by whose side he has sat at one of our much-abused English dinnerparties (at which, stiff and solemn as they are or are said to be, you may nevertheIess, if you are lucky in your neighbor, pass an hour or two with considerable satisfaction)-whose charms of face, of manners, and of mind, he learns quite as much when this event in my life occurred, we were approaching Scarborough. Along hot, dusty, chalky roads, winding as it seemed for ever, over breezy, turf-clad downs, the lumbering old carriage had dragged its way; and there was in the air that strange sense of freshness and freedom, and that delicious briny odor caused by the proximity of the sea; but these sensations could scarcely be noticed or understood at seven years old; and the feeling, when they said we should soon 66 see the sea," was one of far more pain than pleasure-that pain I suppose which the human race incurred when it ate of the "tree of knowledge" - the dawning, half-conscious apprehension of the great mystery of life. And when between the horizon and the turfy hill the sea itself appeared, I remember no pleasure in the sight of it-I remember nothing but an all-pervading sense of novelty and wonder. You may say, perhaps, it is all very well to tell us we ought to study the sea, but who can do it? how many can afford the time and the money for a sea-voyage? Well, but you may study the sea for half your life, and yet have much more to learn about it, without taking any seavoyage at all. To have made a sea-voyage of any length is indeed a magnificent recollection. Even the feeling when the last faint outline of the cliffs that have long ago lost their whiteness has melted into the distant sky, and for the first time you find yourself in the midst of the vast circular desert of water with its great Nor is it; for you have only to take a short run by railroad, with perhaps a very few miles by coach, and however intense a Cockney, however steeped in the utilitarian pursuits of these unsentimental days, you may be with the sea and (literally, if you are a bather) in its arms; and believe me, she is not a mistress that will disappoint you, if you come to her with a reverent mind. You have been luxuriating, we will say, for months in the sights, and smells, and sounds of London; stunned by the eternal brayings of the Belgravian brass-band, or the greasy grinding of the Tyburnian hurdy-gurdy; howled into a state of chronic bewilderment by all that horrible gradation of shrieks and groans which lies between the suicide of Lord John Russell and hare-skins; distracted and humiliated by the charlatanism and chicanery of your party or your profession. At last you find fresh air and seabreezes absolutely necessary, and you determine on seeking them. You can hardly go wrong, but let me recommend the south coast, and especially the south coast of Devon. When you arrive at the little watering-place which you have fixed upon, go down at once (and if possible alone) to the shore of the sea. Already you feel a strange sensation of altered existence. Instead of the rumbling omnibus, the fussy cab, and the everlasting jostle, there is a figure in cap and shooting-coat lounging about, or a tarry old fisherman hobbling along, or a broadbrimmed beauty tripping down to the beach with a basket for those dear anemones. And now you are on the dry, clean "parade," and your mind feels suddenly let loose as your eye rests once more upon that glorious expanse, and you taste the well-remembered balmy breath of the sea, and hear the long-lost voice of its glorious monotony. With a bound you have leaped from the sea-wall, and thrown yourself on the shingle, as it were, at the very feet of the sea. And here you may stay, if you like, for hours, and all the time in a state of enchantment; for wherever you turn your eyes some exquisite picture meets them, and the regular, lulling sound of the waves gives a sort of dreaminess to the whole view, without detracting for one moment from its delight. On either hand cliffs-gigantic, but turf-clad to the summit on the landside, and on the sea-side wild, jagged, and rifted, but covered with a thick under growth of innumerable plants and flowers | parts with turf and with all kinds of creep-shut in the valley that shelters the little town; but on the left, that stately hill that terminates in the cliff, is only the first of a long array, each with its weather-beaten face, whose time-worn rifts and scars are colored with every sort of luxuriant vegetation, turned proudly to the sea, and making strange contrast to that part of its smooth turfy side which is not concealed by its neighbor hill, and on which you may see the white sheep pasturing the calm sunlit sward. What a place for a pedestrian! It is impossible to stay longer where you are. You must up and follow the long white sweeping curve of shingle, heavy walking though it be, that lies between the base of that mighty battalion line of cliffs and the blue water on which they gaze, to where it ends in a snow-white promontory, beyond which all is hidden from your view. And if you do that, you will be really alone with the sea. As you advance, you have a feeling almost of terror, as if you had no business there, so desolate and self-contained is the beauty of shore, and cliff, and sea; but this is only because you are a Cockney, and fancy all that wild loveliness can not be meant for you. Onward you tramp through the deep shingle, now casting a look upward at the tremendous overhanging cliffs of red sandstone, with their huge boulders like but tresses of an enormous cathedral, and peaks starting up abruptly into the deep blue of the sky, and streams trickling down their furrowed sides now turning to refresh your eye with the clear, gray green of the fresh tumbling waves, and let it wander with never-ending delight over that illimitable expanse, whose colors are too many and too beautiful to describe, and which stretches far out into calm sunlight, till it joins in faint yet luminous distance a sky of that pale celestial gold that sympathizes with all that in the human heart is deepest, tenderest, and most divine. And now you are clambering over wild rocks, about which the sea is foaming and splashing, and which have hitherto hidden what was beyond them from your view-so that when you have passed them there is the delight of satisfied curiosity to add to the beauty of the scene itself. The cliffs are now as high, but not so steep, and covered in ing plants; but above the rich green of their sides huge gray, fantastic, primeval rocks are peering, in somewhat irregular array, with kites wheeling about them, and here and there a bit of sky serenely blue seen through some cleft in their hoary sides. Beyond, the opening of a deep narrow gorge or "combe," shut closely in on all sides except that toward the sea by hills covered thick with wood, and perfectly enchanting you with its profound seclusion, its winding paths through impenetrable woods, its tracts of cool green sward, its deep glades into which none but the midday sun can shine, and the hillocks of smooth soft turf that crown its guardian hills when they near the sea, and catch the last rays of the descending sun, and the stream buried deep in its bosom, and which you can hear, but can not see, for the wild flowers and creeping plants that cover it. Or you may ramble under the cliffs to the right of the town, as far as that huge wall of dark red sandstone, barred from head to foot with long buttresses, every one of which is faced with a strip of green turf, and overhanging a secluded nook of the finest and smoothest sand; and when you are tired of strolling about on the sand, you may begin to explore that wilderness of rocks and pools that stretches from where you are standing for miles along the shore, every yard of which is a submarine garden, and every pool starred round with anemotes, crimson, white, or brown, and, most beautiful of all, green; these last having their multitude of undulating arms tipped with a purer and more delicate rose-color than the fingers of Venus as she rose from the sea. And here I will venture to say, that though you be no naturalist, you will linger till the clear tide comes welling up almost to your feet, and begins to cover the "rich and strange" wonders of marine existence you have seen. Thongh I have confessed that I know very little about the sea, I could go on writing about it for a long time, perhaps longer than my readers would like; but if this paper, far below the subject as it is, shall induce any one of the thousands who read "Fraser" to think of the sea more as it is a fountain of exhaustless wonder and delight-I feel that I shall not have written altogether in vain. · ROBERT From Bentley's Miscellany. HUNTER'S GHOST. BY THE AUTHOR OF "RED-COURT FARM." Ir was a gusty night in spring. Two-for, to confess the truth, after all that young ladies were seated over the fire in has happened, and especially these last few a small sitting-room of a commodious days, when these superstitious reports have mansion, listening to the wind as it boomed been prevalent, I do not relish being abroad round the solitary house, and shook the after nightfall with only servants. He shutters, and rattled the window-frames. came at ten o'clock, and I noticed he One of them was tall and fair, looking all seemed absent and silent. Once Mrs. the fairer for her mourning dress, with Connaught addressed him three times behandsome features, a calm blue eye, and fore he answered: a remarkable thing for a compressed lip. Ten or eleven weeks Isaac, who is naturally merry. We came ago she had been a high-spirited, bloom- away. In passing the churchyard, this ing girl since then, her gayety had left corner of it, near the waste land, where her and she was worn to a skeleton. It was Miss Thornycroft. Her companion, a young lady who had come in to spend the evening with her, was not pretty, but an interesting girl, with mild hazel eyes and a pleasant cast of countenance. "I'm sure if the ghost comes abroad at all, it will be out on such a night at this," remarked the latter. "Ghosts are said to favor windy weather." "Don't joke about it, Annie," exclaimed Miss Thornycroft, with a perceptible shudder. "I was not exactly joking: I believe I said it half in belief. But, of course," added Annie, after a pause, "seriously speaking and thinking, there is no truth in it. You can not possibly think there is." "Have you seen my brother Isaac today, to speak to?" was the rejoinder of Miss Thornycroft. "No." the graves are thick, Isaac slackened his pace and walked with his head turned sideways. 'What are you looking for amongst the gravestones?' I asked. "For Hunter,' he replied. And do you know, Annie, though I was then really thinking of poor Robert and of this horrible report about his spirit, Isaac's words gave me a shock, and I held his arm tighter. Mary Anne,' he went on, 'I saw him to-night.' 6 "I squeezed closer to Isaac, closer still when I saw the grave anxiety of his face, for that told me he was not joking. He continued: "If ever I saw Hunter in my life, I saw him to-night in this church-yard, close to his own grave. I saw him, Mary Anne, every feature of his face, as plainly as we see the gravestones at this moment.' "How did it look ?' I shuddered. "It looked as he looked in life: as he must have looked when he was shot down, the hat over the brow, and that remarkable coat on just as those describe who profess to have seen it. Now I know that I am not one to be deceived by ghostly fancies, Mary Anne, and I was staggered. I ran back to the gate, and searched the churchyard all over, but I saw no more of "Ah! So I have exclaimed when others have asserted that they saw it. But Isaac is so calm and cool: there's not a shade of imaginative feeling or superstition about him he is the very last-save, perhaps, it Richard-to be led away by fears or fancies. Listen, Annie. Last night I was drinking tea at Mrs. Connaught's, and I had made Isaac promise to fetch me home] Miss Thornycroft ceased, and her hearer trembled. "Do you think he could have been deceived?" she whispered. "No, Annie, I do not. When a cool, collected man, like my brother Isaac, dispassionately asserts such a thing, added to the terrified assertions of others, I, at least, believe that there must be some dreadful mystery abroad, supernatural or otherwise." "How in the world shall I go home tonight with only Sarah ?" exclaimed Miss Anne, in a dismayed tone. "I shall never pass that churchyard." The two young ladies sat on, over the fire, conversing in dread and doubt. Gradually they relapsed into silence, listening to the sighing wind, and suffering their imaginations to roam on the marvelous. About half past eight one of them spoke. It was Miss Annie. "What can have become of Sarah? My aunt was not well, and said she should send her at eight o'clock at the latest." Scarcely were the words uttered, when that personage entered in a most remarkable manner. A respectable maid-servant, getting on for forty. She banged-to the door behind her, and sat down in an armchair, in the presence of the young ladies. "Sarah!" uttered her young mistress, in a reproving tone. Ay, you may well stare, young ladies, but I can't stand upon no forms nor respects just now. I don't know whether my senses is here or yonder. There's the ghost at this blessed moment in the churchyard!" Annie screamed, and caught hold of Miss Thornycroft. The latter spoke, turning deadly pale. "Your imagination has deceived you, Sarah." "If any thing has deceived me, it's my eyes," retorted Sarah, really too much flustered to stand upon forms; "but they never did yet, miss. When it struck eight, missis called out to me, from the parlor, to come after Miss Annie. I thought I'd finish my ironing first, which took me another quarter of an hour; and then I put my blanket and things away, and off I come. I was a shutting the house-door when I heard master's voice a singing after me, and back I went, into the parlor. 'Is it coals, sir ?" I asked. 'No, it's not coals,' says master, and I saw by his mouth he "Go on, go on," eagerly interposed Mary Anne Thornycroft. "I come right on to the churchyard," continued Sarah, "and what we had been a saying made me turn my eyes on to it as I passed. Young ladies," she added, drawing her chair near to them, and dropping her voice mysteriously, "if you'll believe me, there stood Robert Hunter. He was close by that big tombstone of old Marley's at this end of the churchyard, not three yards from his own grave." "O Sarah!" exclaimed Miss Thornycroft, "do you not think your sight-your fears-played you false? It may have been through talking of him." "Miss, I hadn't got no fears, so they couldn't have done it. No, I saw him. And I'd take a oath of it, as solemn as I took it at the crowner's inquest. It warn't many steps away from me: you know old Marley's grave: there was nothing but the ditch and the low 'edge between us. There he stood, his features as plain as ever I saw 'em in my life, and that uncommon coat on, which I am sure was never made for any body but a Guy Fawkes." "You were frightened, then," exclaimed Annie. "I was not exactly frightened, but I won't deny that I felt a creepishness all over me, and I'd have given half-a-crown out of my pocket if any human creature had but come up to bear me company." "Did you speak to it ?" "I don't know but I might have had the courage, but it didn't give me no time. The minute it saw me a looking at it, it glided away among the gravestones, as if making off for the back of the church. I made off, too, as fast as my legs would bring me, and I come right in here to you, instead of to the kitchen, for I knew my tongue must let it out, and I thought it might be better for you to hear it than them servants." "Quite right," murmured Miss Thornycroft. "I never did believe in ghosts," added Sarah, any more than I'd believe in dreams, and such wishy-washy trash, and I never believed in Hunter's. But I'll not ridicule 'em after this night. Poor wretch! it can't rest quiet in its grave. It may was after a bit of nonsense, 'it's to tellant to denounce its murderer." With the last words Miss Thornycroft you to take care of the ghost.' 'Oh bran the ghost,' says I, 'it had better not come anigh me, I'd knock it down as soon as was attacked with a violent fit of shaklook at it. And so I would, young la- ing. dies," added Sarah, "if I got the chance." "I can not bear this," she wailed. "I |