ven
the aid of religion, or the ministering of affection. He often
commented upon it, and as often as he did so, I thought of my old
grandmother and the spring tides.

I had an odd dream the other night, about my own burial and subsequent
state which was so diametrically opposite to my uncle's ideas of
comfort, that I will relate it here.

I was dead; but, either from politeness or affection, I knew not which,
the spirit still lingered with the body, and had not yet taken its
flight, although the tie between them had been dissolved. I had been
killed in action; and the first-lieutenant of the ship, with mingled
feelings of sorrow and delight--sorrow at my death, which was a tribute
that I did not expect from him, and delight at his assumed promotion,
for the combat had been brought to a successful issue--read the funeral
service which consigned me and some twenty others, sewed up in hammocks,
to the deep, into which we descended with one simultaneous rush.

I thought that we soon parted company from each other, and, all alone, I
continued to sink, sink, sink, until, at last, I could sink no deeper.
I was suspended, as it were: I had taken my exact position in the scale
of gravity, and I lay floating upon the condensed and buoyant fluid,
many hundred fathoms below the surface. I thought to myself, "Here,
then, am I to lie in pickle, until I am awakened." It was quite dark,
but by the spirit I saw as plain as if it were noon-day; and I perceived
objects in the water, which gradually increased in size. They were
sharks, in search of prey. They attacked me furiously; and as they
endeavoured to drag me out of my canvas cerements, I whirled round and
round as their flat noses struck against my sides. At last they
succeeded. In a moment, I was dismembered without the least pain, for
pain had been left behind me in the world from which I had been
released. One separated a leg, with his sharp teeth, and darted away
north; another an arm, and steered south; each took his portion, and
appeared to steer away in a different direction, as if he did not wish
to be interrupted in his digestion.

"Help yourselves, gentlemen, help yourselves," mentally exclaimed I;
"but if Mr Young is correct in his `Night Thoughts,' where am I to
fumble for my bones, when they are to be forthcoming?" Nothing was left
but my head, and that, from superior gravity, continued to sink,
gyrating in its descent, so as to make me feel quite giddy: