ng, as if in mockery at their success! The structure,
but a few hours past, as perfect as human intellect could devise,
towering with its proud canvas over space, and bearing man to greet his
fellow-man, over the _surface of death_!--dashing the billow from her
stem, as if in scorn, while she pursued her trackless way--bearing
tidings of peace and security, of war and devastation--tidings of joy or
grief, affecting whole kingdoms and empires, as if they were but
individuals!

Now, the waters delight in their revenge, and sparkle with joy, as the
sun shines upon their victory. That keel, which with the sharpness of a
scythe has so often mowed its course through the reluctant wave, is now
buried--buried deep in the sand, which the angry surge accumulates each
minute, as if determined that it never will be subject to its weight
again.

How many seasons had rolled away, how many millions had returned to the
dust from which they sprung, before the kernels had swelled into the
forest giants levelled for that structure;--what labour had been
undergone to complete the task;--how many of the existent race found
employment and subsistence as they slowly raised that monument of human
skill;--how often had the weary miner laid aside his tool to wipe his
sweating brow, before the metals required for its completion had been
brought from darkness;--what thousands had been employed before it was
prepared and ready for its destined use! Yon copper bolt, twisted with a
force not human, and raised above the waters, as if in evidence of their
dreadful power, may contain a history in itself.

How many of her own structure must have been employed, bringing from the
north, the south, the east, and the west, her masts, her spars, her
"_hempen tackle_," and her canvas wings; her equipment in all its
variety; her stores for the support of life; her magazines of _quiescent
death_.[1] And they who so fearlessly trod her decks, conscious of their
own powers, and confident in their own skill; they who expanded her
thousands of yards of canvas to the pursuing breeze, or reduced them,
like magic, at the approaching storm--where are they now? How many sighs
have been lavished at their absence! how many hearths would have been
gladdened by their return! Where are the hopes, the fears, the ambition,
and the pride; the courage and the enterprise; the love and the
yearnings after their kin; the speculations of the present, and the
calculations of the fu