in,
might be represented by the following lines from an old sea-song, which,
for the benefit of musical readers I beg leave to observe, is generally
"said or sung" to the tune of "The Bold Dragoons:"

"He looked like a pole-topgallant-mast,
She like a holy-stone."

Thank Heaven! the taste for this species of writing has "had its day,"
and we have something better in the place of it. Bulwer has indeed tried
very hard to compel the public to admire murderers and highwaymen, and
our own dear, darling Cooper, the American Walter Scott, has held up for
admiration and imitation sundry cut-throats, hangmen, pirates, thieves,
squatters, and other scoundrels of different degrees, showing his
partiality and fellow-feeling for the kennel; and, if he had not at
last, as we say at sea, "blown his blast, and given the devil his horn,"
would have managed to set the whole female portion of the
romance-reading community to whimpering and blowing their noses over the
sorrows of Tardee and Gibbs--the wholesale pirates and murderers, the
loves of Mina--the poisoner, the _trials_ of Malbone Briggs--the
counterfeiter, or the buffetings in the flesh that Satan was permitted
to bestow upon the old Adam of that god-fearing saint, Ephraim K. Avery.

The hero of a novel of the by-gone class was always and _ex officio_ a
duellist; and though the best English writers err against morality and
religion in following this absurd track, it may be urged in extenuation
of their offence, that duelling is generally considered in Europe as
part of a gentleman's education and accomplishments, and in this country
to refuse a challenge brands a man with everlasting infamy, though the
crime is held in the most profound speculative abhorrence, and every
state has a whole host of theoretical punishments, never inflicted, for
the violation of its equally theoretical laws, that are daily evaded,
outquibbled, or broken, with impunity.

Morton's countenance we have taken the liberty to describe elsewhere.
His disposition was naturally cheerful and mild, his temper even, and
not easily provoked. Although somewhat inclined to taciturnity, yet
when drawn out to converse upon any subject he was acquainted with, he
was naturally fluent, and in his language pure and correct. He was a
universal favorite with the youth of both sexes in his native town, and,
during the intervals between his voyages, was always in demand when a
Thanksgiving ball was contemplated, o