p-dog. By way of a suitable episode to the long
descriptions she was in the daily habit of writing to those whose
knowledge of her new element was limited to the constant view of a few
ponds and ditches teeming with carp, or an occasional glimpse of some of
the turbid reaches of the Seine, she had vowed to devote her youngest
child to Neptune! In due time, that is to say, while the poetic sentiment
was at the access, the young chevalier was duly enrolled and, in a time
that greatly anticipated all regular and judicious preferment, he was
placed in command of the corvette in question, and sent to the Indies to
gain glory for himself and his country.

The Chevalier Dumont de la Rocheforte was brave, but his courage was not
the calm and silent self-possession of a seaman. Like himself, it was
lively, buoyant, thoughtless, bustling, and full of animal feeling. He had
all the pride of a gentleman, and, unfortunately for the duty which he had
now for the first time to perform, one of its dictates caught him to
despise that species of mechanical knowledge which it was, just at this
moment, so important to the commander of la Fontange to possess. He could
dance to admiration, did the honors of his cabin with faultless elegance,
and had caused the death of an excellent mariner, who had accidentally
fallen overboard, by jumping into the sea to aid him, without knowing how
to swim a stroke himself,--a rashness that had diverted those exertions
which might have saved the unfortunate sailor, from the assistance of the
subordinate to the safety of his superior. He wrote sonnets prettily, and
had some ideas of the new philosophy which was just beginning to dawn upon
the world; but the cordage of his ship, and the lines of a mathematical
problem, equally presented labyrinths he had never threaded.

It was perhaps fortunate for the safety of all in her, that la belle
Fontange possessed an inferior officer, in the person of a native of
Boulogne-sur-Mer, who was quite competent to see that she kept the proper
course, and that she displayed none of the top-gallants of her pride, at
unpropitious moments. The ship itself was sufficiently and finely moulded
of a light and airy rig, and of established reputation or speed. If it was
defective in any thing, it had the fault, in common with its commander, of
a want of sufficient solidity to resist the vicissitudes and dangers of
the turbulent element on which it was destined to act.

The vessels