swam the ocean, so I am determined she shall
have such a figure-head as old Neptune never saw in his life. And what
is more, as there is a secret in the matter, you must pledge your
credit not to betray it."

"Certainly," said Drowne, marvelling, however, what possible mystery
there could be in reference to an affair so open, of necessity, to the
inspection of all the world as the figure-head of a vessel. "You may
depend, captain, on my being as secret as the nature of the case will
permit."

Captain Hunnewell then took Drowne by the button, and communicated his
wishes in so low a tone that it would be unmannerly to repeat what was
evidently intended for the carver's private ear. We shall, therefore,
take the opportunity to give the reader a few desirable particulars
about Drowne himself.

He was the first American who is known to have attempted--in a very
humble line, it is true--that art in which we can now reckon so many
names already distinguished, or rising to distinction. From his
earliest boyhood he had exhibited a knack--for it would be too proud a
word to call it genius--a knack, therefore, for the imitation of the
human figure in whatever material came most readily to hand. The snows
of a New England winter had often supplied him with a species of marble
as dazzingly white, at least, as the Parian or the Carrara, and if less
durable, yet sufficiently so to correspond with any claims to permanent
existence possessed by the boy's frozen statues. Yet they won
admiration from maturer judges than his school-fellows, and were
indeed, remarkably clever, though destitute of the native warmth that
might have made the snow melt beneath his hand. As he advanced in life,
the young man adopted pine and oak as eligible materials for the
display of his skill, which now began to bring him a return of solid
silver as well as the empty praise that had been an apt reward enough
for his productions of evanescent snow. He became noted for carving
ornamental pump heads, and wooden urns for gate posts, and decorations,
more grotesque than fanciful, for mantelpieces. No apothecary would
have deemed himself in the way of obtaining custom without setting up a
gilded mortar, if not a head of Galen or Hippocrates, from the skilful
hand of Drowne.

But the great scope of his business lay in the manufacture of
figure-heads for vessels. Whether it were the monarch himself, or some
famous British admiral or general, or the governor of t